


Mary Potter and the Call to Adventure

by PseudoLeigha



Series: Mary Potter [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fem!Harry, Gen, Single Point of Departure, Snape/Sinistra lust/hate (off screen), and soul mates are dumb, consistent!Professors, many OCs (mostly background students), no other pairs/shipping, oh and I also changed some of the dates to make sense re: days of the week, realistic!Dursleys, the main characters are eleven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 10:10:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 137,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5044273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PseudoLeigha/pseuds/PseudoLeigha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fem!Slytherin!Harry (Mary); realistic!Dursleys; consistent!Professors; follows the books VERY closely, especially the first three chapters or so (deviation from canon is exponential, but slow to start). See first chapter for preface discussion of background/differences from canon. </p><p>Most chapters K-rated, T for language, several sections from Snape's perspective are T. Later books may be M-rated. PM for pdf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Preface Book 1

This story was previously published on ff.net under the username PseudoLeigha, which is also me. There is a pdf version of the book available. Email me if you would prefer that format and I’ll send you a copy.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD!

Most of this will be revealed slowly over the course of the series, but it may be helpful to outline where we’re starting from. It is not necessary to read this chapter to understand the story. To make it eminently clear (as one of my reviewers kindly noted) **THIS “chapter” IS A GIANT A/N**.

I have otherwise avoided author’s notes in this story.

IF YOU WOULD RATHER SKIP STRAIGHT TO THE STORY, GO DIRECTLY TO “CHAPTER 1: THE GIRL WHO LIVED”

* * *

 

So: how does this AU differ from the Canon Universe?

Harry was born a girl: Mary Elizabeth Potter, following my headcanon wherein the Potter naming convention centering on British monarchs’ names (James, Charles, Harry…). All other differences follow from that, beginning with the Dursleys.

Before 1981, Petunia resented magic and was jealous of her sister. I have the idea that if Lily had lived, and Petunia never had to deal with magic, she would have let herself get wrapped up in her normal life, focusing on Dudley and maybe one or two additional children (I’m working on something to that effect, called “Out of Time” which is set in a different AU, the Fall Back Universe), and would not have come to hate and fear magic. Lily was rather arrogant and rude, and generally thoughtless about using magic around her sister. She was a good person, brilliant, but not a saint, and she never considered that it might be a good idea not to show off for her sister, even though she knew Petunia was jealous. James was the same prat toward Petunia and Vernon that we saw in Snape’s pensieve. After Mary (or Harry) was left with the Dursleys, Petunia came to hate and fear magic, as the child was a constant reminder of its existence (and accidental magic didn’t help). She developed a degree of paranoia around the idea that anyone might find out about magic, which is based largely on the fact that she was told by her parents as a child that she had to keep magic a secret, or the government would punish her family in some indeterminate fashion.

Vernon did not hate or fear magic before 1991 and the Zoo Incident, since none of the accidental magic had ever affected his family directly, though he followed his wife’s lead in rejecting the freakishness. He hated Harry himself. Mary is not as actively hated by Vernon as Harry was. My working theory is that Vernon hated having Harry around because he could tell that Harry was much more the sort of son he wanted than Dudley was. Dudley was the kind of boy who cried to his mother about not wanting his cousin to come to the zoo, (pretended?) not to know how to count up by two, and needed a gang of friends with him to beat up a six-year-old. Harry was the kind of boy who took his punishments, and stood up to make another snarky comment the next week, despite knowing what he’d get for it. Vernon likes to think of himself as a strong, manly man, (ex-)rugby player, the sort of man who provides for his family, etc. Though he would never articulate it, he knew that Dudley did not have the personality and temperament to be that kind of man, and that he is (at least as much as Petunia) to blame for spoiling the boy. With Harry in the picture, Vernon was constantly reminded that Dudley was a failure. Rather than trying to correct that, Vernon took his anger out on Harry, with Petunia’s hatred of magic as an excuse. With no Harry, he is able to ignore Dudley’s childhood shortcomings fairly effectively. Mary he largely ignores, unless Petunia asks him to deliver corporal punishments, which she doesn’t very often.

Harry was therefore physically abused to a much greater extent than Mary. (Dudley treated Harry and Mary more or less the same, because they aren’t old enough yet for the idea of “don’t hit girls” to have sunk in, so she’s still taken quite a few hits from Dudley and his gang.) Mary’s punishments largely consisted of being locked in the cupboard and denied food, as well as the same serious neglect Harry suffered from.

Mary differs from Harry insofar as the Dursleys never actually beat her to the point where she saw herself as inferior or less than deserving of a good life. Her aunt derided her as being ugly, stupid, and worthless (all the things Petunia secretly felt about herself in comparison to Lily). Her uncle also casts negative remarks at her appearance, but most often at things she has no control over, so she doesn’t take these comments too seriously. Her cousin and his friends were just starting to make fun of her for her lack of femininity at the beginning of the story. She really is a tom-boy, so she doesn’t care about this either, (though she wears dresses fairly often, as it is much easier to make a dress out of a tee-shirt than to take Dudley’s pants in enough that they won’t fall off of her). She knows that the way she was treated by the Dursleys was unusual (though by the beginning of the story she would rather suffer their neglect than be spoiled like Dudley), and maybe wrong. Harry certainly acts as though he has internalized the idea that his life is not worth much to anyone. Mary’s life has value, if only to her. She wants to get away from the Dursleys and have a _good_ life, despite her upbringing, and is not content to just float along with _good enough_. (Plus if Aunt Petunia wants her to be normal, there’s no way she’s going to settle for _that_.) She has, for the most part, learned to hold her tongue, and keeps sarcastic remarks away from adult hearing, though she will still say things to Dudley.

While Harry is slightly more Gryffindor than Slytherin, Mary is more Slytherin than Gryffindor: she long since gave up on the idea that anyone was going to come save her (while Harry retreated into this dream as a mental escape from the physical abuse), and now sees herself as being set against the world. She likes to learn, but always has an eye toward whether she can use something for her own gain (she’s not vindictive, but she has her priorities in order. For example, she is most concerned that she will be missing lunch at school, not lessons). She’s quiet and has trained herself to observe people carefully, because this is the only interaction with people that she is allowed by the Dursleys. She holds certain ideals in high regard (honesty and not having to pretend to be anything less than herself; bravery to stand up to those who would try to keep you down; excellence as the end-goal for whatever she attempts; self-sufficiency, because the only person looking out for Mary is Mary. She doesn’t mind hard work; believes in equal exchange, seeing the chores she does for the Dursleys as payment for their giving her shelter and occasionally food; and disdains laziness and excuses because they remind her of Dudley), but never having experienced real friendship or affection as long as she can remember, she doesn’t inherently value them (Harry on the other hand always felt that Dudley should have been his friend, and felt terribly betrayed by his enmity, which is why he was so willing to make up with him by the end of things. He longs for friendship, acceptance, and normality. Mary has convinced herself she doesn’t need or want them, and wants to be _better_ than normal.) Even after spending a month or so bonding with Hermione, it would not have surprised or crushed her if Hermione were to betray her or stopped being her friend for some reason. In a fairy tale, Harry would want to be the hero; Mary would want to be the wise and mysterious stranger who meets the hero on a dark road and sends him on his way before making her own path.

Several lines from the first chapter have been replaced to make more sense given the characterization of Albus and Minerva, as well as facts we learn about the events of Halloween 1981, later in the series, such as Black being a traitor, and the fact that Albus obviously knows Minerva’s Animagus form, so there’s no reason to comment on it. Her asking him how he knew it was her is just stupid on her part, and really no one’s _that_ dense. I can’t believe that no one gave even a token protest at the decision to leave Harry with muggles, or that the child would have been left in an unprotected basket, so the conversation has also been tweaked in that regard.

The role of Dumbledore: Dumbledore placed Harry/Mary with the Dursleys in his capacity as Chief Warlock – he’s not _just_ the Headmaster, after all. This is also how he obtained the key to the Potter Vaults: An emergency session of the Wizengamot on 1 November 1989 granted him the authority to hide away the Potter child as a national treasure and asset in a time of war. He did not actually have custody himself, or he doubtless would have kept the child at Hogwarts (the safest place in the world) or in any case, near himself. (BTW, 31 October 1981 was a Saturday. If Vernon went to work on the day Minerva watched the house, that had to be the 2 nd of November at the earliest. Therefore, Dumbledore had at least 24 hours to arrange protections, get legal permission, etc. before dropping off the child. I blame many of the assumptions about legal process in the wizarding world in fanon to be based in the fact that fan-fiction writers are fan-fiction writers, not lawyers or government workers, and many of us have no experience with the British legal system, and have no idea what the British magical legal system reasonably could or should look like. Our basis from canon is that of the unreliable and under-informed perspective of an underaged wizard. I am entirely comfortable assuming that there _must_ , in order to maintain the Statute of Secrecy, be quite a lot more liaising and official covering-up than one sees in canon.) As for the next ten years, Albus set wards to let him know if Harry was under attack or in mortal peril, and went about his duties as Headmaster, Chief Warlock, and Supreme Mugwump. He’s a busy man. He ignored several very rude letters from the Dursleys, until they stopped writing to him, and just assumed that they would take decent care of the child. In my headcanon backstory of canon events, he returns early from a business trip to France only to find that Harry Potter has not yet received/responded to his Letter, and sets up a series of ever-more-elaborate delivery systems, because it amuses him, culminating in sending Hagrid on Harry’s birthday.

In the Mary Potter Universe, Vernon’s relative rationality in dealing with Mary-problems leads the Dursleys to try to get rid of Mary instead of trying to keep her from magic. Dumbledore suspects even in 1981 that Voldemort didn’t really die (if nothing else, the fact that the Dark Mark didn’t disappear gives it away), but he’s not actively trying to manipulate the prophecy yet. For one thing, the prophecy implies a _male_ savior, so he doesn’t give its literal interpretation as much credit as he did in canon (Voldemort obviously marked Mary, and she is still the Girl Who Lived, and this makes Dumbledore open to broader interpretations than mutual destruction, since obviously the details are a bit fuzzy. He suspects that Neville is really the promised Savior (which is another reason he expects Voldemort to return – he still has to mark Neville in some way, and then be destroyed by him), but is happy to have Mary be a distraction for the public.) Mary was not deliberately left with abusive relatives in order to destroy her sense of self-esteem so that she will be Dumbledore’s Sacrificial Lamb. That was an accident. He still won’t apologize, though, because all’s well that ends well.

Regarding Dean Thomas, I have no idea how he wasn’t in the exact same situation as Harry in the books, unable to figure out how to send an owl, etc, as his father was a wizard who left his mother. In this universe, Minerva double-checks the addressees when she de-activates the recurring-letter charm on Mary’s address, and notices that Dean Thomas has also been sent multiple letters. Dean is thus included with Mary, Hermione, and Justin Finch-Fletchley for the muggleborn Diagon Alley excursion. (I feel like there should be more muggleborns, but these are the only ones confirmed for Harry’s year, as far as I can tell, and this is supposed to stick as closely as possible to canon. 10% of an incoming class is reasonable, I suppose, if on the low end of what I would expect… It may be presumed, if I introduce more students as muggleborn, that their families were on a second trip to the Alley. After all, McGonagall can only babysit so many children and muggle parents at once.)

Many fan fiction authors have speculated about the nature of muggle-magical government relations and the idea of Magical Guardianship. The general idea seems to be that Dumbledore is Harry’s Magical Guardian in some way, shape, or form. In my headcanon, Magical Britain, which includes all the British Isles, is a semi-autonomous political entity, and holds treaties with the highest levels of government in the UK and Ireland. It is governed exclusively by the Ministry of Magic, and purebloods are citizens only of Magical Britain. The UK has no record of their existence, with very few exceptions. Their hereditary wealth exists only in the magical world. Half-bloods, if born in a muggle hospital, are considered dual citizens of Magical Britain and the UK/Ireland, as are muggleborns. Muggleborn children have a magical guardian who is responsible for their actions and behavior in Magical Britain. The default magical guardian is the Office of Child Services in the Muggle Liaison Department (which is the department responsible for dealing with serious, unavoidable, everyday interactions between citizens of Magical Britain and the government of the UK/Ireland). In Harry’s case, since he was placed with a muggle family, instead of with his father’s closest living relative (I’ve assigned Molly Weasley the honor), or Alice Longbottom (presumed godmother) and subsequently Augusta Longbottom, and moreover since this was done in secret, the magical guardianship would have reverted to the Office of Child Services. Harry had to be a UK citizen if he was enrolled in primary school (I assume, being American, myself), therefore we must presume that his birth was recorded with the muggle authorities by Lily Potter, or he was born in a muggle hospital, rather than St. Mungo’s due to pressure from Voldemort’s people. The Office of Child Services therefore needed the permission of Harry/Mary’s muggle guardians to appoint a different magical guardian, which Petunia is all too happy to give.


	2. Chapter 1: The Girl Who Lived

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If the fact that this is basically Chapter 1 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone bothers you, please consider just skipping to Chapter 3.

###  Monday, 2 November, 1981

#### Surrey

Mrs. Petunia Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, was proud to think of herself as perfectly normal, thank you very much. Her husband, had he ever given it a moment’s thought, would probably have thought that his family was quite a lot better than normal, and you’d do well to remember it. But nobody asked him. In any case, they were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.

Mr. Vernon Dursley was a director in a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck and a very large mustache. He had played rugby in school, and thought of himself as quite the manly man. Petunia agreed. She was thin and blonde, and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. She had been a housewife for nearly six years, which, she liked to tell her friends, was a much more profitable career than any other she really could have hoped to get with her anthropology degree. When she was not spying on the neighbors, she cooked and cleaned, and chatted with the neighborhood ladies, but the vast majority of her time was lavished on her son, Dudley. He was just over one year old, and in the Dursleys’ opinion, there was no finer boy anywhere.

The Dursleys had everything they needed, and for the most part were very happy with their life. That is not to say that there is nothing they wanted: Vernon was always striving for a promotion and a pay raise, and Petunia would, all around, have preferred to have something more interesting to do with her day than take care of a single small child. But they both felt useful and, as Petunia put it, they were exceedingly successful in getting what everyone _said_ they should want, and that was what really mattered, when it came right down to it. Unfortunately, the Dursleys, along with everything they needed and much of what they wanted, also had a secret. It was Petunia Dursley’s greatest fear that someone would discover it. Vernon privately thought that should the secret ever be discovered, he could deal with it with sufficient bluster and offended denials. After all, who would believe a thing like that? But he supported his wife, and, as such, would never belittle her fear, which was that anyone (anyone who mattered, that was) might find out about the Potters.

Mrs. Potter was Petunia’s sister, but they hadn’t met for several years. If you had asked Mrs. Potter why not, she would have said it was because Petunia was envious and it was better this way, anyway. If you had asked Mrs. Dursley, she would have said it was because Mr. Potter and his friends were obnoxious morons, and that the whole lot of them, Mrs. Potter (who she no longer referred to by her given name) included, hadn’t the foggiest idea how to behave like normal, responsible adults. They would, of course, both be right, and there were several other reasons besides, but it boiled down to Petunia pretending that she didn’t have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. She shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small child too, but they had never met. If pressed, Vernon could not actually remember the sex of the child. In any case, it was sure to take after its parents, and thus was another good reason for keeping away from the Potters: they didn’t want Dudley mixing with a child like that.

When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Monday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Vernon hummed aimlessly as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Petunia gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair.

None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.

At half eight, Vernon picked up his briefcase, pecked his wife on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye, but missed, because Dudley was having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls. “Little tyke,” chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car and backed out of number four’s drive.

It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar – a cat reading a map. For a second, Mr. Dursley didn’t realize what he’d seen – then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn’t a map in sight. He sincerely hoped that it was a trick of the light, an effect of not quite yet being fully awake. He blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As he drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive – no, _looking_ at the sign. Cats couldn’t read maps, or signs, therefore, in his world, _they didn’t_. To see a cat reading a map was _not possible_. He gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town, he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.

On the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn’t help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in _cloaks_. He couldn’t bear people who dressed in funny clothes – they always reminded him of that bloody arse Potter, and his crowd. That said, there were an awful lot of them, more weirdos than he had thought existed, or had ever seen before, so he assumed that it must be some stupid new fashion, or perhaps a stunt. Yes. These people must be collecting for something…that would explain it. The traffic moved on, and a few minutes later, Vernon Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, his mind back on drills.

Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hadn’t, he might have found it harder to concentrate on drills that morning. He didn’t see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though most people in the street did. They pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl, even at nighttime. Vernon, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more. He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he’d stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy himself a bun from the bakery.

He’d forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the baker’s. He eyed them suspiciously as he passed. He didn’t know why, but they made him uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn’t see a single collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.

“The Potters, that’s right, that’s what I heard. Yes, their girl, Mary-”

Mr. Dursley stopped dead, shocked. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.

He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone, and had almost finished dialing his home number when he changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stroked his mustache, thinking… no, he was being stupid. Potter wasn’t such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Potter with a daughter called Mary. Come to think of it, he wasn’t even sure his niece was called Mary, or that she wasn’t actually a nephew. He was certain the name ended with an ‘ee’ sound, and it was one of those royal names. Could have been Lizzie, or Harry, even. Even if it _was_ Mary, half the girls in England were probably called Mary. There was no point worrying Petunia; she always got so upset at any mention of her sister. He didn’t blame her – if he’d had a sister like that, he’d have disowned her too… but all the same, those people in cloaks…

He found it much harder to concentrate on drills that afternoon and when he left the building at five o’clock, he was so preoccupied that he walked straight into someone just outside the door.

“Sorry,” he grunted, as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell. It was a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realized that the man was wearing a violet cloak. And under it, robes! As though he were walking in a university graduation. How entirely _odd_. Perhaps there was a convention in town. The man didn’t seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice that made passersby stare, “Don’t be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even muggles like yourself should be celebrating this happy, happy day!”

And the old man hugged Mr. Dursley around the middle and walked off.

Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He had also been called a “muggle,” a word which he could only recall hearing once before, from a very drunk friend of that bloody arse Potter, at the Potters’ wedding. That was, he thought, a very disturbing encounter. At the very least it suggested that all of the oddly dressed people were not, in fact, collecting for some charity or rallying for a convention, but were, in fact, weirdos. Freaks. He hurried to his car and set off home, hoping that whatever was going on, it was nothing to do with _those_ Potters, and therefore nothing to do with him and his family.

As he pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing he saw – and it didn’t improve his mood – was the tabby cat he’d spotted that morning. It was now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one: it had the same markings around its eyes.

“Shoo!” said Mr. Dursley loudly. The cat didn’t move. It just gave him a stern look. Was this normal cat behavior? He wondered. He had personally always been more of a dog person, but Petunia was allergic. Trying to pull himself together, he let himself into the house. He was still debating whether he should mention anything to his wife.

Petunia had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door’s problems with her daughter, and how Dudley had learned a new word (“Won’t!”). Vernon tried to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news:

“And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation’s owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in the daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping patterns.” The newscaster allowed himself a grin. “Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim?”

“Well, Ted,” said the weatherman, “I don’t know about that, but it’s not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they’ve had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early – It’s not until Thursday, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight.”

Mr. Dursley sat frozen in his armchair. Shooting stars all over Britain? Owls flying by daylight? Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place? And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters…

Mrs. Dursley came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He had to say something. He cleared his throat nervously. “Er…Petunia, dear…you haven’t heard from your sister lately, have you?”

As he had expected, she looked shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended she didn’t have a sister. “No,” she said sharply, setting his tea on the coffee table, just out of his reach, and glaring at him. “Why?”

“Funny stuff on the news,” Vernon mumbled. “Owls… shooting stars. And there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today…”

“So?” Petunia snapped.

“Pet… one of them called me a muggle. I think…maybe…it’s something to do with…you know… _her_ crowd.”

Petunia sipped her tea through pursed lips. Vernon wondered if he dared tell her he’d heard the name Potter. He decided he didn’t dare. Instead he waited a few minutes and then asked, as casually as he could, “Their son – he’s about Dudley’s age, right?”

“Honestly, Vernon. It’s a girl. And yes, I suppose so.”

“What’s her name, then? Lizzie?”

“Mary Elizabeth. Nasty, common name if you ask me.”

“Oh, yes,” said Vernon, his heart sinking horribly. “Yes, I quite agree.”

He didn’t say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Petunia was in the bathroom, Vernon crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there. It was staring down Privet Drive as though it were waiting for something.

Was he imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Potters? If it did… if it got out that they were related to a pair of – well, he didn’t think he could bear it. Petunia certainly couldn’t.

The Dursleys got into bed. Petunia fell asleep quickly, but Vernon lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Petunia. They knew very well what the Dursleys thought about their kind… He couldn’t see how he and his wife could get mixed up in anything that might be going on. He yawned and turned over. It couldn’t affect them…

How very wrong he was.

* * *

Vernon Dursley might have drifted off into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. It did not so much as quiver when a car door slammed on the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.

A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, so suddenly and silently you’d think he’d just popped out of the ground. The cat’s tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.

Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, both of which were long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles. His nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man’s name was Albus Dumbledore.

He did not seem to realize (or perhaps he just didn’t care) that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, “I should have known.”

He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again: the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights on the street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn’t be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn’t look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.

“Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall.”

He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too was wearing a cloak, an emerald green one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled.

“Where have you been all day?” she asked.

“All day? Do you mean to say that you have been sitting on this wall all day, when you could have been celebrating? I must have passed up a dozen invitations to feasts and parties today.”

McGonagall sniffed angrily. “Oh yes, everyone’s celebrating, all right,” she said impatiently. “You’d think they’d be a bit more careful, but no – even the muggles have noticed something’s going on. It was on their news.” She jerked her head back at the Dursleys’ dark living-room window. “I heard it. Flocks of owls… shooting stars… Well, they’re not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent – I’ll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much common sense.”

“You can’t blame them,” said Dumbledore gently. “We’ve had precious little to celebrate for eleven years.”

“I know that,” said the Professor, irritably. “But that’s no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in muggle clothes, swapping rumors.”

She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn’t, so she went on. “A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?”

“It certainly seems so,” said the man. “We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?”

“A what?”

“A lemon drop. They’re a muggle sweet.”

“No, thank you,” said McGonagall coldly, as though she didn’t think this was the moment for lemon drops. “As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone –”

“My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this You-Know-Who nonsense – for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort.” Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was unsticking two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. “It all gets so confusing if we keep saying ‘You know who.’ I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort’s name.”

“I know you haven’t,” said the Professor, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. “But you’re different. Everyone knows you’re the only one You-Know, oh, all right, _Voldemort_ , was frightened of. It’s not like he would have come to kill _you_ for breaking the Taboo on his name.”

“You flatter me,” said Dumbledore calmly. “Voldemort had powers I will never have.”

“Only because you’re too, well, noble to use them.”

“It’s lucky it’s dark. I haven’t blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs.”

McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said, “The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what everyone’s saying? About why he’s disappeared? About what finally stopped him?”

It seemed that the Professor had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now. It was plain that whatever “everyone” was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. The man, however, was choosing another lemon drop, and did not answer.

“What they’re saying,” she pressed on, “is that on All Hallows Eve, Voldemort turned up in Godric’s Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are – are – that they’re – dead.”

Dumbledore bowed his head. McGonagall gasped.

“Lily and James… I can’t believe it… I didn’t want to believe it… Oh, Albus…”

Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder. “I know… I know…” he said heavily.

“And is it true, what the aurors are saying, that it was Sirius who…?”

“Yes. I’m afraid so.”

She choked, almost sobbing. Her voice trembled as she went on. “That’s not all. They’re saying You-Know-Who tried to kill the Potters’ daughter, Mary. But – he couldn’t. He couldn’t kill that little girl. No one knows why, or how, but they’re saying when he couldn’t kill Mary Potter, his power somehow broke – and that’s why he’s gone.”

Dumbledore nodded glumly.

“It’s – It’s true?” faltered McGonagall. “After all he’s done, all the people he’s killed, he couldn’t kill a little girl? It’s just astounding. Of all the things to stop him… but how in the name of heaven did Mary survive?”

“We can only guess,” said Dumbledore. “We may never know.”

Professor McGonagall pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles. Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch. It had twelve hands, but no numbers. Instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, “Hagrid’s late. I suppose it was he who told you I’d be here, by the way?”

“Yes,” was the response, “Though he did manage not to tell me why you’re here, of all places.”

“I’ve come to bring Mary to her aunt and uncle. They’re the closest family she has left now.”

“You don’t mean – you can’t mean the people who live here?” cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. “Dumbledore, you can’t! I’ve been watching them all day. You couldn’t find two people who are less like us. And they’ve got this son – I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Mary Potter, come and live here!”

“It’s the best place for her,” Dumbledore said firmly. “Her aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to her when she’s older. I’ve written them a letter.”

“A letter?” repeated the woman faintly, sitting back down on the wall. “Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand her! She’ll be famous – a legend – I wouldn’t be surprised if the first of November is known as Mary Potter day in the future! There will be books written about her! Every child in our world will know her name!”

“Exactly,” said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. “It would be enough to turn any girl’s head. Famous before she can walk and talk. Famous for something she won’t even remember. Can’t you see how much better off she’ll be, growing up away from all that until she’s ready to take it?”

“The Potters didn’t want her to come here, and you know it, Dumbledore! Black’s her godfather. He’s right out, of course, but what about Alice Longbottom? She’s her godmother, Lily’s best friend, and she would be an excellent foster mother. We can change her name, hide her in plain sight, safe in the magical world, where we can keep an eye on her. She can grow into her heritage as a proper witch. Leaving her here will make her as isolated as any muggleborn coming into our world! I assume you do mean for her to come back eventually?”

“Of course, Minerva, but think. It’s not safe. There are still dozens of Death Eaters on the loose. Black told Voldemort where to find the Potters. What’s to say he wouldn’t also have told him about Alice and Frank and the rest of the Order? We don’t know what they know. They could know that Alice is Mary’s godmother. They could go looking for her there next. It wouldn’t matter if we changed her name. For now, at least, it’s safer for Mary to live in the muggle world. No one will be able to find her here. It doesn’t have to be forever. It’s better this way, surely you see.”

Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed, and then said, “Yes…yes, you’re right, of course. But how is the girl getting here, Dumbledore?” She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Mary underneath it.

“Hagrid’s bringing her.”

“You think it…wise…to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?”

“I would trust Hagrid with any task, my dear, just not any secrets,” said Dumbledore.

“And what is this, if not a secret, Albus?” the woman asked sharply.

Dumbledore looked slightly concerned, but his face cleared as he came to a solution. “We’ll just have to remove the memory of where he’s brought the girl. I’m sure he’ll volunteer once we’ve explained the situation –Ah.”

A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight. It swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky, and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.

If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man, and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild – long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face. In his vast, muscular arms, he was holding a bundle of blankets.

“Hagrid,” said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. “At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?”

“Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir,” said the giant, climbing off the motorbike as he spoke. “Young Sirius Black lent it to me afore, well… I’ve got her, sir.”

“No problems, were there?”

“No, sir. House was almost destroyed, but I got ‘er out all righ’ before the muggles started swarmin’ around. Brought her to Poppy at ‘eadquarters, like you said, and she says she’s alright. She put the warmin’ and sleepin’ charms on like you said, right afore we left. Reckoned it’d be 5:30, 6 this mornin’ an she wakes up.”

Dumbledore and McGonagall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby girl, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over her forehead, they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.

“Is that where…?” whispered Professor McGonagall.

“Yes,” said Dumbledore. “She’ll have that scar forever.”

“Couldn’t you do something about it, Dumbledore?”

“Nothing permanent, I’m afraid. Pity that. Perhaps you can teach her a glamour to hide it once she’s old enough. Well, give her here, Hagrid. We’d better get this over with.”

Dumbledore took Mary in his arms and turned toward the Dursleys’ house.

“Could I – could I say good-bye to her, sir?” asked Hagrid. He bent his great, shaggy head over Mary and gave her what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.

“Shhh!” hissed Professor McGonagall. “You’ll wake the muggles!”

“S-s-sorry,” sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. “But I c-c-can’t stand it – Lily an’ James dead, an’ Sirius a traitor, an’ poor little Mary off ter live wi’ muggles –”

“Yes, yes, it’s all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we’ll be found,” McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Mary on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Mary’s blankets, and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle. Hagrid’s shoulders shook, McGonagall blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore’s eyes seemed to have gone out.

“Well,” said Dumbledore finally, “That’s that. We’ve no business staying here. Minerva, you may as well go and join the celebrations. Hagrid, I need a word with you, but let’s get back to Headquarters, first.”

“Right, sir. I’ll meet you there. G’night, Professor McGonagall.”

Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine to life. With a roar, it rose into the air and off into the night.

“I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall,” said Dumbledore, nodding to her. She blew her nose in reply.

Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once, and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps, so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could just make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four.

“Good luck, Mary,” he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.

A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Mary Potter rolled over inside her blankets without waking up. One hand closed on the letter beside her, and she slept on, not knowing that she was special, not knowing that she was famous, not knowing that she would be woken in a few hours’ time by Petunia Dursley’s scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that she would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by her cousin Dudley… She couldn’t know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: “To Mary Potter – The girl who lived!”


	3. Chapter 2: The Sound of Wet Scales on Small Stones

###  Dudley’s Birthday, June 1991

#### Surrey

Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their niece on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dusleys’ front door. It crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen the fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets. Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and the photographs now showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that a girl lived in the house, too.

Yet Mary Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. Her Aunt Petunia was awake, and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day.

“Up! Get up! Now!”

Mary woke with a start. Her aunt rapped on the door.

“Up!” she screeched. Mary heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. She rolled onto her back and tried to remember the dream she had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorbike in it. She had a funny feeling she’d had the same dream before.

Her aunt was back outside the door.

“Are you up yet?” She demanded.

“Nearly,” said Mary.

“Well, get a move on. I want you to look after the bacon. And don’t you dare let it burn! I want everything to be perfect on Duddy’s birthday.”

Mary groaned.

“What did you say?” her aunt snapped through the door.

“Coming, I’m coming…”

Dudley’s birthday – how could she have forgotten? Mary got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. She found a pair under her cot, and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Mary was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where she slept.

When she was dressed, she went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley’s birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Mary, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise, unless it involved punching somebody, of course. Dudley’s favorite punching bag was Mary, but he couldn’t often catch her. She didn’t look it, but she was very fast.

Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, or Aunt Petunia’s favorite punishment (sending her to bed without supper), but Mary had always been small and skinny for her age. She looked even smaller and skinnier than she really was because all she had to wear were old clothes of Dudley’s. She did her best to take them in with needle and thread, but Dudley was about four times bigger than her. She had a thin face, knobbly knees, curly black hair that tried valiantly to escape its pony tail, and bright green eyes. She wore heavy, round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape, because of all the times Dudley had punched her in the nose. The glasses made her eyes look much larger than they really were. The only thing she really liked about her own appearance was a very thin scar on her forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. She had had it as long as she could remember, and the first question she could ever remember asking her Aunt was how she had gotten it.

“In the car crash when your parents died,” she had said. “And don’t ask questions.”

 _Don’t ask questions,_ or rather _don’t speak_ was the first rule for a quiet life at the Dursleys. The second was _take your punishment without complaints, because you deserve everything you get and more_. Third was _it’s always your fault, even when it couldn’t possibly be your fault._

Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Mary was turning over the bacon.

“Comb your hair!” he barked, by way of a morning greeting.

About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted a complaint about Mary’s physical appearance. Her hair was a common topic of criticism, as were her clothes, the shape of her nose, and the fact that she was too skinny. None of which she could do anything about.

Mary was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. He looked a lot like Uncle Vernon: large pink face; very little neck; small, watery blue eyes; thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel. Mary had once said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig, and she had not had dinner for a week. It was still true, though.

Mary brought the plates of egg and bacon to the dining room table, and found there was nowhere to set them. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.

“Thirty-six,” he said, looking up at his mother and father. “That’s two less than last year.”

None of the Dursleys were paying any attention to Mary as she rolled her eyes and set the plates on top of a couple of boxes, vaguely near where they should have gone, had there not been _thirty-six_ bloody presents on and around the table.

“Darling, you haven’t counted Auntie Marge’s present, see, it’s here under this big one from Mommy and Daddy.”

“All right, thirty-seven then,” said Dudley, going red in the face. Mary, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, retreated to the kitchen and began eating her own bacon and eggs as quickly as possible in case Dudley turned the table over. It would, of course, somehow be her fault if he managed to break half his presents before he even opened them, and also her job to clean up.

She could see Dudley from her place by the stove, and heard Aunt Petunia’s conciliatory, “And we’ll buy you another two presents while we’re out today. How’s that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that alright?” She had obviously scented danger too.

Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally he said slowly, “So I’ll have thirty… thirty…”

“Thirty-nine, sweetums,” said Aunt Petunia. Mary fancied there was something like concern in her voice, and not just for her son’s peace of mind. There was something wrong with an eleven-year-old who couldn’t count up by two. Come to think of it, Dudley had to be having them on. He’d known perfectly well that thirty-six was two shy of thirty-eight, and his memory had to be quite good if he remembered exactly how many gifts he had gotten last year, anyway.

Mary snorted into her eggs, thinking what an idiot her aunt was for believing Dudley was really _that_ big an idiot, and overheard Uncle Vernon chuckling as well. “Little tyke wants his money’s worth, just like his father. ‘Atta boy, Dudley!” Perhaps Dudley would accidentally pretend to be so stupid that he would be held back a year. She had to smother another laugh at the thought.

Mary finished her food and came back into the dining room as the telephone rang. Aunt Petunia went to answer it, while Mary and Vernon watched the pig in a wig unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen computer games, and a VCR. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.

“Bad news, Vernon,” she said. “Mrs. Figg’s broken her leg. She can’t take her.” She jerked her head in Mary’s direction.

Dudley’s mouth fell open in horror, but Mary’s heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley’s birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Mary was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Mary hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made her look at photographs of all the cats she’d ever owned. The cats themselves were creepy, too, always watching her every movement.

“Now what?” said Aunt Petunia, looking at Mary as though she’d planned this. She knew she ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn’t easy when she reminded herself that it would be a whole year before she had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws, and Tufty again.

“We could phone Marge,” Uncle Vernon suggested. That would be the worst possible solution, thought Mary. Marge was awful, and her dogs were worse. The _best_ Mary could hope for at Marge’s was to find a way onto the roof and not come down until the Dursleys returned. At the worst, she would probably be in hospital due to being savaged by a pack of bulldogs at Marge’s say-so.

“Don’t be silly, Vernon, she hates the girl.” Translation: She would never agree to do it.

The Dursleys often spoke about Mary like this, as though she wasn’t there, or rather as though she were something very nasty that couldn’t understand them, like a slug.

“What about what’s her name, your friend – Yvonne?”

“On vacation in Majorca,” snapped Aunt Petunia. Even Mary had known that. Vernon really ought to pay more attention when Petunia gossiped at him over dinner.

“You could just leave me here,” Mary put in hopefully. She’d be able to watch what she wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Dudley’s computer.

Aunt Petunia looked like she’d swallowed a lemon. “And come back to find the house in ruins?”

“I won’t blow up the house,” said Mary, thinking that if she did, it wouldn’t be while they were _out._

“I suppose we could take her to the zoo,” said Aunt Petunia slowly, “…and leave her in the car…”

“That’s a new car, she’s not sitting in it alone.”

Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn’t really crying (it had been years since he’d really cried) but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted. It was a wonder that his father somehow still managed to think that his son was a strapping young lad, and not a fat, worthless cry-baby.

“Dinky Diddydums, don’t cry, Mummy won’t let her spoil your special day!” she cried, flinging her arms around him.

“I… don’t… want… her… t-t-to come!” Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. “She always sp-spoils everything!” He shot Mary a nasty grin through the gap in his mother’s arms.

Just then, the doorbell rang – “Oh, good Lord, they’re here!” said Aunt Petunia, frantically – and a moment later, Dudley’s best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny-looking boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people’s arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. It was just as well. Piers hit harder than Dudley, who had momentum going for him, and not much else. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.

* * *

Half an hour later, Mary, who couldn’t believe her luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys’ car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in her life. Her aunt and uncle hadn’t been able to think of anything else to do with her. Before they’d left, though, Uncle Vernon had taken her aside.

“I’m warning you,” he had said, putting his large, purple face right up close to Mary’s, “I’m warning you now, girl – any funny business, anything at all – and you’ll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas.”

“I’m not going to do anything,” said Mary, “Honestly…”

But Uncle Vernon did not believe her. No one ever did.

Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Mary coming back from the barber’s looking as though she hadn’t been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut her hair so short she was almost bald, except for her bangs, which she left “to hide that horrible scar.” Dudley had laughed himself silly at Mary, who had spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where she was already laughed at for her baggy clothes and taped glasses. Next morning, however, she had gotten up to find her hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. She had been given a week in her cupboard for this, even though she had tried to explain that she _couldn’t_ explain how it had grown back so quickly.

Another time Aunt Petunia had been trying to force her into a revolting old sweater of Dudley’s (brown with orange puff balls). The harder she tried to pull it over Mary’s head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn’t fit Mary. Aunt Petunia decided it must have shrunk in the wash, and to her great relief (and utter astonishment), Mary wasn’t punished.

On the other hand, she’d gotten in terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley’s gang had been chasing after her as usual when, as much to Mary’s surprise as anyone else’s, there she was, sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had gotten a very angry letter from Mary’s headmistress telling them that Mary had been climbing school buildings. But all she’d tried to do (as she shouted at Uncle Vernon from the locked cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. She supposed that the wind must have caught her mid-jump. It was as good an explanation as any other, which was to say, terrible.

But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending a day somewhere that wasn’t school, her cupboard, or Mrs. Figg’s cabbage-smelling living room.

While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Mary, the council, Mary, the bank, and Mary were just a few of his favorite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.

“…roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums,” he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.

“I had a dream about a motorcycle,” said Mary, remembering suddenly. “It was flying.”

Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Mary, his face like a gigantic beet with a mustache: “MOTORCYCLES DON’T FLY!”

Dudley and Piers sniggered.

“I know they don’t,” said Mary. “It was only a dream.”

But she wished she hadn’t said anything. If she hadn’t been in such a good mood, she probably wouldn’t have. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than her asking questions, it was her talking about things acting in a way it shouldn’t, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon. They seemed to think she might get dangerous ideas.

“Why’re you dreaming about motorcycles, then? Not a very girly thing to be thinking of, is it?” Piers’ new game was to make fun of her for not acting like, as he called it, ‘a real girl’. She applauded his attempt to branch out in his bullying, but really, out of all things he could bother her about, dreaming about motorcycles was a weak choice.

Dudley nevertheless joined in: “What’s’a matter, cousin dearest? Thinking you’d make a better boy than a girl?”

She sat quietly and ignored them. _Nothing_ was going to ruin this trip.

* * *

It was a very sunny Saturday, and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance, and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Mary what she wanted before they could hurry her away, they bought her a cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn’t bad, either, Mary thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head. It looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn’t blond.

Mary had the best morning she’d had in a long time. She was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn’t fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting her. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn’t have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one, and Mary was allowed to finish the first.

Mary felt, afterward, that she should have known it was all too good to last.

After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Mary liked snakes. She had met a few on Privet Drive, as she was forced to do the gardening for Aunt Petunia. She liked to imagine they could talk to her. They were always very polite and friendly. On one occasion, she had even brought one into her cupboard so that she could have a friend, but had been forced to let him go when it became clear that she couldn’t keep him fed. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons, but Mary was happy to go around and visit each snake individually and say hello.

Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon’s car and crushed it into a trash can, but at the moment it didn’t look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep. Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening coils of muscle.

“Make it move,” he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn’t budge.

“Do it again,” Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.

“This is boring,” Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.

Mary moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. It was tensed, not relaxed. She wouldn’t have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself: no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom – at least she got to visit the rest of the house.

“I know you’re faking it,” she said, quietly. “You’re not asleep.”

The snake, formerly a pile of coils with no clear head or tail, shifted. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Mary’s.

Its tongue flickered at her in an interested way.

Mary stared. Then she looked around quickly to see if anyone was watching. They weren’t. She looked back at the snake and winked at it. “Hey, listen, sorry about them. They’re awful. I’d stop them if I could.”

She imagined the snake said, “It’s not your fault. And anyway, I get that all the time.”

“It must be really annoying,” Mary replied. When the snake moved as though it was nodding, she asked, “What are you called?”

The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Mary peered at it. Boa Constrictor, Brazil. Could it really understand her?

“Haven’t you got a name?”

The snake fixed her with a very intense stare, then hissed, “The humans call me Georgia, but my name is The Sound of Wet Scales on Small Stones. Who are you, speaker?”

“I’m Mary Potter. The Sound of Wet Scales on Small Stones is a much prettier name than Georgia. Kind of sad, but in a hopeful way, you know?”

Just then, a deafening shout behind Mary made both of them jump.

“DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT IT’S DOING!”

Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.

“Out of the way, you,” he said, punching Mary in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Mary fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened – one second Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.

Mary sat up and gasped. The glass front of “Georgia’s” tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling herself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.

The snake paused for a moment near Mary, and she could have sworn she heard it say, “Thank you, Mary Potter. Farewell,” before it swiftly slid away.

The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.

“But the glass,” he kept saying, “where did the glass go?”

The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Mary had seen, the snake hadn’t done anything except snap playfully at their heels as she passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon’s car, Dudley was telling them how she had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing she had tried to squeeze him to death. But worst of all, for Mary, at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, “Mary was talking to it, weren’t you, Mary?” All the denials in the world could not defray the punishment to come.

Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Mary. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, “Go…cupboard…stay…no meals,” before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.

* * *

Mary lay in her dark cupboard much later, wishing she had a watch. She didn’t know what time it was, and couldn’t be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, she couldn’t risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food. The cupboard had a lock on it, but she never had trouble sneaking out for food. She guessed that they locked it when she first went in, and then unlocked it later, because they didn’t really want her to die of starvation or soil herself. The first would make too many people ask questions, and the second would make the hall smell bad. Well, the first probably would, too, after a while. As long as they didn’t see her outside the cupboard, though, they would ignore bits of food going missing and toilets flushing at odd hours.

She sighed, lying on her cot in the dark. She’d lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, if her life could really be called _living_. Ten miserable, just barely surviving years, as long as she could remember, ever since she’d been a baby and her parents died in that car crash. She couldn’t remember being in the car when her parents had died. Sometimes, when she strained her memory during long hours in the cupboard, she came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on her forehead. This, she supposed, was the crash, though she couldn’t imagine where all the green light came from. A traffic signal, perhaps? She couldn’t remember her parents at all. Her aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course she was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.

When she had been younger, Mary had dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take her away, but it had never happened. The Dursleys were her only family. Yet sometimes she thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know her. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to her once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Mary furiously if she knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at her once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken her hand in the street the other day, and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Mary tried to get a closer look.

She wondered if they were going to let her go to school this time. She had no friends there. Everybody knew that Dudley’s gang hated that odd Mary Potter, in her baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley’s gang. And she was a very poor student, through no fault of her own. She wondered, sometimes, what the teachers thought of her, missing weeks of classes, always running from her cousin and his gang, smallest kid in her class, broken glasses and giant hand-me-down clothes, bruises on her arms and forever nursing a cut lip or black eye. Surely they had to see that something was wrong? But they never said anything, and neither did Mary. After all, the first thing they were likely to do was have a conference with the Dursleys, and then her life would be even more wretched. But she hoped that they would let her go to school. If she missed the end of the year exams, she would probably have to repeat the entire term (suddenly her thought of Dudley repeating a year was not nearly so amusing), and, more importantly, she would lose her one guaranteed source of food: school lunches.

She stretched, rolled off the cot, and tried the door. It was open, and there were no lights on. Good enough. Time to see what could be had for dinner.


	4. Chapter 3: A Light at the End of the Tunnel

###  Monday, 22 July 1991

#### Surrey

It was the first day of the summer holidays, and Mary’s first day out of the cupboard since Dudley’s birthday. Aunt Petunia had relented enough to let her take her end-of-term exams, which Mary thought she had maybe just barely passed, but every moment not at school had been spent in her cupboard. It was her longest-ever punishment. When she got out, she found that Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.

Mary was glad she would no longer have to face her teachers’ disappointed looks and being shunned by the rest of the students, but at home there was no escaping Dudley’s gang, who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader. The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley’s favorite sport: Cousin Crushing.

This was why Mary traditionally spent as much time as possible out of the house in the summer, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where, at least this year, she could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came, she would be going off to secondary school, and, for the first time in her life, she wouldn’t be with Dudley. Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon’s old public school, Smeltings. Piers Polkiss was going there too. Mary, on the other hand, was going to the local parochial school, Stonewall. Dudley thought this was very funny.

“They stuff people’s heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall,” he told Mary, back in June when they first found out. “Want to come upstairs and practice?”

“No, thanks,” said Mary. “The poor toilet’s never had anything as horrible as your head down it. It might be sick.” Then she ran home and barricaded herself in her cupboard, before Dudley could work out what she’d said.

Dudley had gotten his Smeltings uniform the day prior. It consisted of orange knickerbockers, a maroon tailcoat, and a flat straw hat called a boater. Smeltings boys also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other when the teachers weren’t looking, which was supposed to be good training for later life. If that were the case, she thought, she’d had enough good training for at least two lifetimes. She had been brought out of the cupboard to make appropriately appreciative noises as he modeled it, and thought she might have cracked a rib trying not to laugh.

This morning, there was a horrible smell from the kitchen. When she asked what it was, Aunt Petunia, after glaring as she always did when Mary asked a question, explained that it was her new school uniform. She was dyeing some of Dudley’s old things grey so that, as she put it, “It’ll look just like everyone else’s when I’ve finished.”

Mary seriously doubted that, but held her tongue. It would be worth looking like some sort of vagabond to not be going to school with Dudley.

Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Mary’s “new” uniform. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual, and Dudley banged his Smeltings stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.

They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.

“Get the mail, Dudley,” said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.

“Make Mary get it.”

“Get the mail, Mary.”

Mary considered saying, “Make Dudley get it,” but thought better of it, and slid from the chair.

There were three things on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon’s sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight; a brown envelope that looked like a bill; and a letter for Mary.

Mary picked it up and stared at it, her heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in her whole life, had written to her. Who would? She had no friends, no other relatives. She didn’t even belong to the library, so she’d never even gotten rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:

_Miss M.E. Potter_   
_The Cupboard under the Stairs_   
_4 Privet Drive_   
_Little Whinging_   
_Surrey_

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald green ink. There was no stamp. Turning it over, her hand trembling, Mary saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms: a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter ‘H’.

“Hurry up, girl!” shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. “What are you doing? Checking for letter bombs?” He chuckled at his own joke.

Mary went back to the kitchen, still staring at her letter. She handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.

Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.

“Marge’s ill,” he informed Aunt Petunia. “Ate a funny whelk.”

“Dad!” Dudley interrupted. “Dad, Mary’s got something!”

Mary was on the point of unfolding her letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of her hand by Uncle Vernon.

“That’s mine!” snapped Mary, reflexively, trying to snatch it back.

“Who’d be writing to you?” sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn’t stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.

“P-P-Petunia!” he gasped.

Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.

“Vernon! Oh my goodness – Vernon!”

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Mary and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn’t used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smeltings stick.

“I want to read that letter,” he said loudly.

“ _I_ want to read it,” said Mary furiously, “as it’s _mine_.”

“Get out, both of you,” croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.

Mary didn’t move. “I WANT MY LETTER!” she shouted.

“Let me see it!” demanded Dudley.

“OUT!” roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Mary and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Mary and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole. Dudley won, so Mary, glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on her stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor.

“Vernon,” Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, “look at the address – how could they possibly know where she sleeps? You don’t think they’re watching the house?”

“Watching…spying…might be following us,” muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.

“But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don’t want –“

Mary could see Uncle Vernon’s shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.

“No…No, Pet,” a certain slyness had entered Uncle Vernon’s tone. “Best we think about this a bit. I’ve got to get off to work, you know. Lets you and I talk about it when I get home. Privately. Bring, you know, the _other_ thing.”

* * *

Vernon proceeded to have the most preoccupied work day that he had had in nearly ten years. He took the letter with him so that the children couldn’t find it in the house somewhere. He thought it a smart choice, as when he got home, he was immediately ambushed by Dudley, who was inordinately curious about who might want to write to his scrawny little cousin. Mary appeared to be sulking in her cupboard, or else out wandering the town as she was wont to do.

After fighting off his son (and taking a few solid blows with the bloody Smeltings stick), Vernon brought Petunia out to the car where they could have a bit of a private chat. The kids thought they were sneaky, listening at keyholes, but really, did they think he was an idiot?

Vernon and Petunia drove to a nearby shopping center and stopped in the parking lot. Vernon pulled out the letter, and they read it together. It was very short.

~v^v~

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

_Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, Order of Merlin First Class, Grand Sorc. Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump International Confed. of Wizards_

_Dear Miss Potter,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on 1 st September. We await your owl no later than 31st July._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall,_

_Deputy Headmistress_

~^v^~

There was a second sheet, listing uniform requirements, books, and other equipment, as promised.

Vernon had read the letter several times over the course of his entirely preoccupied day. The thing that enraged him the most about the bloody thing was the complete lack of contact information. _We await your bloody owl?_ What the hell was that supposed to mean? Regardless of whether they wanted to send the little bitch off and make her someone else’s problem, they’d still need to send a response, wouldn’t they?

“We’ve got to tell them we’re not having it, Vernon! I won’t have a bloody _witch_ in the house!” She said _witch_ like other people might say _dog shit_.

“Did you bring the other letter, Pet?”

“Yes, here.” She handed it over, and continued babbling about how she wouldn’t stand for any bloody abnormality in her home. The other letter really wasn’t _much_ longer, and as an explanation of having their niece left on their doorstep, it was absolute rubbish, but, as Vernon had thought he recalled, it did have an address where they could send an actual letter.

~v^v~

_My Dear Vernon and Petunia,_

_It is my sincerest regret to inform you that your sister, Lily Potter, and her husband James, were killed last night. I understand that you have not been in communication with the Potters for some time. Lily told me that they had distanced themselves to try to protect you. I don’t know how much she told you._

_You may know that there is a war going on in Magical Britain. The forces of light and order wish to maintain the current status quo, protecting and welcoming muggleborn witches and wizards, such as your sister, into our society, while the insurgents value blood purity and see muggleborns as inferior. Their leader, who calls himself Voldemort, wishes to kill off or exile all muggleborns and has been carrying out a terrorism campaign against our government to that effect._

_The terrorist Voldemort killed Lily and James personally. Lily enacted a very old, very strong protection on your niece as she was killed, essentially sacrificing herself to save her daughter. It worked. When Voldemort tried to kill Mary, his curse was reflected upon himself, and his body was destroyed. We do not yet know if he is dead, but for now he is defeated._

_Unfortunately, he had many followers, and dozens of them are still on the loose and looking for revenge. To protect young Mary, as well as your family, I have enacted wards, based on the protection Lily left her child and your family connection. She must come live with you to ensure that these wards protect you all._

_If you should need to contact me, a letter sent to the following address will find me:_

_Hogwarts, Office of the Headmaster_  
_c/o John Proctor_  
_11 Purley Ln_  
_South Croydon_  
_Greater London_

_My condolences,_

_Albus Dumbledore_

~^v^~

Vernon read the old letter again, then exclaimed: “I thought so! It’s the same bloke, Petunia!”

“Well, of course it is. Meddlesome old fool. Mucking about in our lives and not giving us the bloody time of day when we ask for it.”

They had written this _Dumbledore_ as soon as they had found Mary on the doorstep. They knew that the Potters couldn’t possibly have wanted the Dursleys to be their daughter’s guardians, and they didn’t want the job. They were firmly rebuffed in their efforts to get anyone else to take the child, as Dumbledore insisted that this was the best solution for their safety. He did assure them that once the danger had passed, they could take the girl away and hide her in the magical world, but that was all the explanation they received, and no one ever came to tell them that the danger had passed.

Eventually the Dursleys had accepted the idea that they were stuck with their niece indefinitely, though they resented her and the weirdness she connected them to by the fact of her very existence.

Petunia, of course, was still afraid that the neighbors would find out that there was something fundamentally abnormal about the girl. She hated anything _weird_ with what was probably, Vernon thought, an unhealthy passion, though he would never say so to her face. He, on the other hand, had recently begun to fear the girl herself. The snake incident…it made him shudder, it did. Before that, all the “incidents” had been harmless, really, or only affected the girl, but the snake…Dudley could have been hurt.

At first they had tried to quash the magic out of her. When that didn’t work, they focused on making the girl as obedient as possible. That _had_ worked, for the most part. She never asked questions and accepted whatever punishments they gave her without complaint. She never aired their dirty laundry outside the family, and did as she was told around the house. But the _incidents_ kept happening, and Vernon couldn’t help but think that maybe it would be worth getting her out of their lives, even if it did mean that she’d be a witch.

He tried to explain this to Petunia: “Snookums, I think maybe we should consider it.”

“Are you out of your bloody mind, Vernon?” she shrieked.

He winced. The car was a very small space for such a loud response. “No, darling. I know you hate magic and everything to do with it, but listen,” she glared at him when he said the m-word, but was silent, so he continued. “Pet, I’m worried. Nothing we’ve done has stopped the _incidents_. If anything, they’re getting worse. That snake – It could have killed Dudley. I know you don’t want to give her any power. Lord knows I don’t either. But I think she needs to go. Needs to learn to bloody well _control_ herself. I think we can handle having a witch in the family two months out of the year if it means we’re safe for the other ten, don’t you?”

Petunia pursed her lips. He made a good point, about their precious boy being in danger. “Alright. But I don’t want her back, even for two months out of the years. We need to make an agreement with this Dumbledore character. Got a pen in here?”

He handed her a pen and she scribbled on the back of the new letter for a bit. He sat quietly.

“How’s this:

  1.        We want to know what the terms of the protections on our house are.
  2.        We will have only as much contact with the girl as necessary to keep the protections in place.
  3.        Otherwise, we do not want to ever see the girl again.
  4.        She will stay at the school for all holiday breaks, or be otherwise fostered in the magical world until she reaches her majority.
  5.        We are not to be contacted for any reason whatsoever by any member of the magical community outside of the necessary visits to maintain the protections.
  6.        We will not pay for the girl’s schooling or ruddy supplies. If you want her so badly, you lot will have to pay for it.
  7.        If you refuse our terms, we will disown the girl and make her a ward of the state, and take our safety into our own hands.”



Vernon looked at the paper as Petunia enumerated her demands. He smiled, somewhat viciously. “I like it. But maybe add here, 2a: all contact will be supervised by a trained adult from that school, for our safety, in case there’s another incident, or she thinks to do something on purpose after she can control herself. And add that they’d damn well better send someone to take care of the shopping and explain all this to the girl. I’m bloody well not going to do it.”

“Good thinking, Vernon.” She looked at him with relief in her eyes. Could it be that they were almost out of the woods, finally?

“Come on, Pet. We’ve got a letter to send.”

* * *

The Dursleys sent their letter to Dumbledore via Mr. Proctor, and waited for a response, which they assumed would take a few days at the very least. One to get the letter to Proctor, one for forwarding, one for a response.

That same night, after dropping the letter in the post-box, Uncle Vernon did something he’d never done before: he visited Mary in her cupboard. This, Mary thought, was the most terrifying thing that had ever happened in her cupboard, as Uncle Vernon easily took up more than half of the available space.

She scrunched herself down in the short end of the space, under the lower stairs, and asked, “Where’s my letter? Who’s writing to me?”

“It’s taken care of. Never you mind,” said Uncle Vernon shortly, then added belatedly “And don’t ask questions.”

“It was _my_ letter! It had my _cupboard_ on it.”

“SILENCE!” Yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths, reminding himself that soon it would all be over, and they couldn’t have some school official showing up and seeing that the girl lived in a cupboard. He forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.

“Er…yes, Mary…about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking…you’re really getting a bit big for it. We think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley’s second bedroom.”

“Why?” asked Mary.

“Don’t ask questions!” snapped her uncle. “Take this stuff upstairs, now.”

The Dursleys’ house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia; one for visitors, usually Uncle Vernon’s sister Marge; one where Dudley slept; and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn’t fit into his first room. It only took Mary one trip to move everything she owned from the cupboard to this room. She sat down on the bed and stared around herself. Nearly everything was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank that Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbor’s dog; in the corner was Dudley’s first-ever television set, which Dudley had put his foot through when his favorite program had been canceled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they had never been touched.

From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, “I don’t want her in there…I need that room… make her get out…”

Mary sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday she would have given anything to be up here. Today she’d rather be in her cupboard with that letter than up here without it.

Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He’d screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and he still didn’t have his room back. Mary was thinking about this time yesterday, and bitterly wishing she had opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.

When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Mary, made Dudley go get it. They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, “There’s another one! ‘Miss M.E. Potter, the smallest bedroom, 4 Privet Drive –‘“

With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Mary right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the floor to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Mary had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smeltings stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Mary’s letter clutched in his hand.

“Go to your cupboard – I mean your bedroom,” he wheezed at Mary. “Dudley, go. Just go.”


	5. Chapter 4: Efficient Solutions to Difficult Situations

###  Tuesday, 23 July 1991

#### Hogwarts

Bright green flames erupted in the fireplace in Minerva McGonagall’s office. She moved at once to kneel at the hearth. Her caller, she saw, as his features resolved into a coherent picture, was John Proctor, a muggleborn former Hufflepuff who had graduated some twenty years previous and moved back to muggle London. She thought, stretching her memory, that he did something with trade. Importing muggle goods or something like that. She could not imagine why he would be firecalling her out of the blue.

“Oh, hello there, Professor McGonagall. I’m terribly sorry to interrupt your morning, I’d intended to speak to the Headmaster. I must have missed his grate.”

Ah, that would explain it, she thought. “No, no, Mr. Proctor, isn’t it? I’m afraid Albus is in France this week and next for one of the annual Wizengamot conventions. I’m filling in while he’s gone.”

“Oh, dear, well, okay then. I suppose this is rather urgent, in any case.” She raised an eyebrow, wondering what he was on about, so he continued. “I’ve been acting for the past few years as a contact for Muggles who need to get in contact with the Wizarding world. I’ve a letter to pass on to him.”

“Ah, I see. Well, might as well hand it over, then. I’ll put it on his desk, or send it on if it really is urgent as you say.”

He handed the letter through, “Thank you, ma’am. And now I suppose I’d better be off.” With that, he vanished, and the flames followed him away.

Minerva sat back on her heels, thinking that she really was getting too old to be kneeling on hearthrugs, and looked at the letter in her hand. To someone accustomed to parchment it seemed thin and insubstantial. It was from a Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, in Surrey. Now why, exactly, did that address ring a bell for her? She tossed the unopened envelope onto a pile of other parchments to deal with that afternoon and settled back to planning her visits to the families of prospective muggleborn students. Whatever the muggles had to say, it could wait, like everything else had to, when she was the only person running the administrative side of the school.

Halfway through writing a letter to Flourish and Blotts informing them of the prospective dates of the yearly new-muggleborns’ visits to Diagon Alley, it hit her: Surrey. Number four, Little Whinging, Surrey. Mary Potter’s Aunt and Uncle. She looked back to the address.

It matched.

In less than a second, she had the envelope open, the paper unfolded in front of her. It was, she thought, quite the rudest letter she had seen in years.

~v^v~

_To the Headmaster of Hogwarts_

_It’s been eight years, you ruddy blighter, and not a word, until out of the blue we get a letter saying that the girl’s to come to you on the first of September, no word of how to contact you, or how to get her bleeding supplies, or where to send her._

_You owe us – ten years we’ve kept the brat, dealing with her incidents, keeping her fed and clothed. We don’t want any of your vile weirdness in our home – we’d stamp it out of her if we could – but she’s got to go. It’s too dangerous to keep her here. So here’s the deal._

_You know we’ve only kept her because you threatened our family – said we had to, to keep ourselves safe. Well. We want to know exactly what we need to do to keep ourselves safe, and from now on, we won’t have any contact with her outside of what’s needed for those protections. If and when we have to see her, you’ll send a qualified adult with her to supervise and make sure we’re safe from her. She is to stay with your lot for all holidays, or be fostered, or otherwise dealt with by you. We don’t want to ever see the girl again. We are not to be contacted for any reason whatsoever by anyone from your world. We will not pay for her schooling or ruddy supplies. We’ve not seen a penny all these years for caring for her. It’s someone else’s turn now. And you lot damn well better send someone to take her shopping and whatnot. We’ll not be doing it._

_If you refuse these terms, we will disown the girl and make her a ward of the state, and take our safety into our own hands, if indeed there is anything to worry about, ten years on._

_Respond at once with your intentions._

_Vernon and Petunia Dursley_

~^v^~

Minerva read the letter through twice, then set it down carefully on her desk. Her first thought was to hex the abominable muggles who had sent her this letter, about Mary Potter, of all children. Her second was to call Albus at once and ask him why he hadn’t arranged some other care for the Potter girl by now. Whenever she asked him about her, he said she was fine, but this letter suggested otherwise, still stuck with the horrible Dursley family. This was followed quickly by the thought that Albus had obviously not been checking up on the girl, as he had implied he had done over the years. She thought it unlikely that, in such an obnoxious communication as this, the Dursleys would have lied about how long it had been since they had last heard from him, after all. She was certain she had asked after the girl not two years ago, on Mary Potter Day, as the first of November had indeed come to be called.

“She’s fine, Minerva. Happy and healthy, and doing quite well, all told.” The bloody _tosser_. She would be willing to bet that he hadn’t even looked in on the girl, but rather had set wards to alert him if something should happen to her, and then gone on his merry way. The girl was a national treasure! She ought to have been looked after more carefully than that.

The third thought was that the girl undoubtedly had no conception of the existence of Magical Britain, and she had best arrange yet another muggleborn-student visit, no matter the girl’s actual parentage.

She did not pass the letter on, but left it in the center of Albus’ desk. He could deal with the bit about the wards when he returned. In the meanwhile… she pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment. After nearly twenty minutes of revising, she produced a letter which was calm, professional, and gave no hint of her initial rage on reading the Dursleys’ missive.

~v^v~

_23 July 1991_

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

_Scotland_

_Dear Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Dursley_

_My sincerest apologies for the letter(s) delivered to your home. They are signed and sent automatically, and I am afraid your niece’s living situation was not updated with the proper authorities in order to prevent their being sent. I have discontinued them, and you ought not receive another._

_It is the usual procedure in cases such as your own for myself, as the Deputy Head of the school, to come and discuss the existence of magic with the family and the child in question, and to personally extend the invitation to the school. I can also provide information regarding excuses to be made to non-magical authorities and neighbors, and answer any questions you may have regarding the school and the magical world. A group shopping trip for school supplies will be organized for children from non-magical households after I have had a chance to visit and obtain schedules from all of the families in question._

_Regarding the unique requests in your letter, I regret to inform you that Headmaster Dumbledore is currently out of the country on government business. I will ensure that he contacts you at once upon his return to discuss the requirements of the protections on your house and your family. I feel I can safely promise that your niece will not be left unsupervised in your company after this summer. I will attempt to arrange alternative accommodations for her at once, with an eye toward removing her from your house when I come to discuss the school with her._

_If you are amenable, I will call at No. 4, Privet Dr., Little Whinging, Surrey, as indicated on your letter, this Friday, the 26 th of July, between the hours of two and five in the afternoon. If this date and time are impossible, please notify me at once with an alternative. The owl has been instructed to await a response if necessary. If unnecessary, simply tell it, “No response.”_

_Again, my apologies for the irregularity of the situation,_

_Minerva McGonagall, MTr; MAr_

_Deputy Headmistress, Hogwarts_

~^v^~

###  Wednesday, 24 July 1991

#### Hogwarts

She received a curt response the following afternoon by return owl. Perhaps Mrs. Dursley hoped that a faster response would get rid of her niece more quickly.

~v^v~

_Do make it three o’clock on Friday. And send someone dressed like a normal person, if you please._

_Petunia Dursley_

~^v^~

Minerva finalized the appointment in her calendar, sent off a letter to the Office of Child Welfare in the Muggle Liaison Department at the ministry, and went to find a house elf to make up a room for the girl in the Residential Wing. She could have summoned one, of course, but she felt it would do her some good to get out of the office for a bit. And if she just happened to run into Professor Snape along the way, well… He might be… _interested_ to know that Lily Evans’ daughter would be coming to the school a month early. Never let it be said that Minerva McGonagall didn’t look out for _all_ of her students, even the ones who had long since graduated.

###  Friday, 26 July 1991

#### Surrey

Minerva McGonagall arrived on the Dursleys’ front step promptly at three and knocked twice, sharply. Petunia Dursley came to the door, and the two women eyed each other for a long moment. Minerva thought that Petunia looked like a horse that had smelled something unpleasant. If she were feeling charitable, she might also admit that she saw the lines of stress and fear in the muggle’s eyes, and that her dye-job really was quite good. Petunia thought that Minerva looked awfully stern and professional for one of _that crowd_ , in her skirt suit and heels. A bit out of date, but judging from the color of her hair in its stiff bun (not a steel-grey strand out of place), that could easily have been age alone. The moment ended when Petunia said with a sniff, “Come in, then.”

Minerva rolled her eyes as she followed the Dursley woman into a house that looked like an advert in a magazine – overly sterile and un-lived-in. Apparently she had passed inspection. She had not dressed any differently for this meeting than she would have for any other muggle-parent meeting, but she supposed Mrs. Dursley thought she had. _The same arrogance as Lily_ , she thought, remembering her old student, _and none of the joy._

Petunia was still talking, as she was wont to do when nervous. “My husband’s still at work. I told him I would take care of it. We can talk here in the sitting room, and I’ll call the girl in when we’ve settled a few things.” She did not offer tea. She was trying hard not to let her hostessing instincts, well-trained through years of garden parties and polite visits with the neighbors, get the best of her. If there was one thing _weirdos_ did not deserve, in her mind, it was politeness. But this was more difficult than she had expected, given that the woman had answered Vernon’s letter so professionally and then turned up, exactly on time, looking like an old schoolmarm and not one of _them_ at all. _Just remember, they left you with that little freak for ten years!_ She reminded herself sternly.

They settled in the sitting room in a pair of armchairs. Minerva raised an eyebrow slightly at the lack of an offer of tea and the hideous photos of Dudley on the walls, but she had not really expected a polite welcome from the author of that hideous letter. Petunia cringed internally, forcibly reminded of Madame Miseroll, her primary school headmistress. She had had that same look that said “I know what you’re doing, and you should be ashamed of yourself.” _Stop it, Petunia, you are a grown woman!_

Petunia sneered slightly at the witch, but before she could say anything else, Minerva did so, extending a hand politely as though Petunia’s discomfort and distaste weren’t rolling off her in waves and taking the conversation in hand like an unruly first-year. “Minerva McGonagall, how do you do?”

“How do you do?” Petunia replied, taking the hand reluctantly and letting it go after only a brief shake.

“I understand you are Lily Evans’ sister, which is the entire reason Miss Potter was remanded to your care in the first place.” Petunia nodded, her mouth making a moue of distaste at the mention of her sister. “Well, then, that makes the first part of this conversation move along much more quickly, as you will already be aware that magic exists, and that my school invites young witches and wizards to come train their magic at the age of eleven.” Petunia winced slightly at _magic, witches_ and _wizards_ , but she nodded again. “Do you recall anything about the legalities of the situation?”

“I know there’s a Ministry of Magic,” Petunia found herself replying, “And that we’re not to tell anyone that what the girl does is magic, or they’ll come and punish us somehow. Not that we would, anyway. Wouldn’t want anyone knowing we’re related to freaks.” She looked scared, Minerva thought, as though she would be turned into a toad for calling her niece a freak. Much as Minerva might like to do so, she had heard much worse from frightened parents who had no idea how to deal with their children’s accidental magic. It was the rare household that was pleased to find out that they knew very little about how the world actually worked. Minerva simply ignored the last statement.

“Indeed. The Ministry would not _punish_ you as such – you are outside their jurisdiction, as non-magical citizens of the UK. They would cover up the event, and perhaps compel you not to mention anything about magic to anyone who did not know, in order to keep an international law called the Statute of Secrecy.” Petunia nodded.

“The purpose of the law is just what it sounds like in the name: to keep non-magical folk from learning about the existence of magic. We believe it is best for all parties, and our Ministry has an agreement with the Crown about the details of enforcing this division. Under one exception, immediate family of a muggleborn – that’s a witch or wizard born to a non-magical family – may be informed about the existence of Magical Britain, and may visit muggle-friendly areas within Magical Britain, including –“

Petunia cut her off. “We’ll not be visiting anyplace magical.”

Minerva nodded. “In any case, you may if you choose, inform your son of the existence of magic, and your husband, as Miss Potter is officially your ward.” Seeing the look on Petunia’s face, she added, “You _should_ tell your son. There is a chance that his children may have magic, you know. It does run in families, and crops up unexpectedly.” Petunia blanched.

Minerva continued as though she hadn’t noticed. “Hogwarts is a boarding school. We will invite Miss Potter to come live there from September through June each year. There is a three-week break over the winter holidays, at which time students may stay at the school if they so choose. It is expected for students to return home throughout the months of July and August, but I understand from your letter that you would prefer Miss Potter be fostered elsewhere in the summer?” Petunia nodded again, face resolute. She would not budge on the issue.

“Very well,” said Minerva. “In that case, you will need to appoint a guardian for the girl in Magical Britain. This person will have parental rights over the child when she is in Magical Britain, and will be able to legally arrange summer care for her. Normally the Magical Guardianship for muggleborn students resides with the Muggle Liaison Department, Office of Child Welfare, but they will not arrange special living situations, and would return her right back to you for the summer.

“Suitable alternative guardians include: her nearest magical relative, a Mrs. Molly Weasley, nee Prewett, who is a second cousin of Miss Potter’s late father on his mother’s side; a school official such as myself or Headmaster Dumbledore; or Miss Potter’s godmother’s son’s guardian – Miss Potter’s godfather is unavailable, and her godmother suffered an unfortunate attack a week after the Potters, leaving her son in the care of his paternal grandmother, Mrs. Longbottom. If Miss Potter had been placed as the Potters would have wanted, Mrs. Longbottom would have ended up with both children. I recommend Mrs. Weasley, however, as she has several children around Miss Potter’s age, and –”

“These women, they would have to agree, and sign paperwork and whatnot?”

“Yes, of course, but I hardly think –“

“You do it, then,” Petunia said abruptly.

“Mrs. Dursley, I –“

“I want this done and taken care of _today_ , Mrs. McGonagall. You said you could do it,” she added with an accusatory glare.

“Very well.” Minerva pulled a crisply folded parchment from her purse. She had expected to have to owl it to Molly Weasley or Augusta Longbottom, but she was not unwilling to take responsibility for the girl. And it wasn’t as though the child wouldn’t have been coming to Hogwarts this evening anyway while they sorted out the housing details with one of the families. “Sign on the lines where indicated.” Petunia did so, not even reading the form.

Minerva added her own signature, and the parchment glowed gold for a moment, indicating that the document was legally binding, and a copy had been filed in the Ministry. Petunia started, and leaned as far as she could from the offending glow without actually leaving her chair.

“This means that I am now Miss Potter’s legal guardian in Magical Britain, which is for this purpose considered a semi-autonomous political entity. You remain her legal guardian in the UK, until she reaches her majority. You need not see her until then, so long as she remains in Magical Britain, which I think I should be able to arrange. If you have any questions, you may contact the Ministry at this address.” She tried to hand Mrs. Dursley a card, but the infuriating muggle waved it away. Minerva set it on the coffee table instead.

“What about those protections, or whatever?”

“Headmaster Dumbledore will return from the Continent next week, and I will ask him to contact you at once regarding alternative protections which will not necessitate Miss Potter interacting with you in any way.”

“Good,” said Petunia with a little shudder.

Minerva smiled slightly. She really was quite put out with Albus. “If he suggests something elaborate and complicated, you might remind him that the entire reason he left the girl with you in the first place was that the non-magical world is vast and anonymous. As you have already indicated that you never wish to contact your niece again, I think that if you perhaps move, and avoid contact with anyone in Magical Britain, it might be sufficient protection. After all, Lily is dead, and no one knows that the girl has been here for the past ten years. There is no reason for anyone to come after you, anymore.”

Petunia looked furious. “That’s _it_? Just _move_ , and pretend we don’t know anything about any of you? If I’d known that, we’d have done it years ago!”

Minerva tried not to laugh at the younger woman’s outrage. “You may wish to wait for a while after making your excuses to the muggle authorities. You wouldn’t want them to think that you’d killed Miss Potter or some such.” Petunia went white again. That would be almost worse than their neighbors knowing about the Potters.

“Speaking of which, you should use the excuse that you are sending Miss Potter to St. Helga’s, a finishing school for difficult girls, located in Scotland near Inverness.” Minerva fished a brochure, printed on glossy muggle paper, out of her purse, and laid it on the coffee table with the Ministry card. “Our government and yours have an understanding, which includes the existence of St. Helga’s and Sir Godric’s, fictional boarding schools which muggleborn children attending Hogwarts supposedly attend. Should any lesser authorities look into it, they will find that all of the records are in order. If your friends look into it for their own daughters, they will find that it is an extremely exclusive and selective institution with working telephone and fax addresses. You may tell anyone you like: Miss Potter will be attending St. Helga’s, her mother’s alma mater, for her secondary education. If anyone has been spying on your door today, I am a representative of St Helga’s, and so on.”

“What about the fees and equipment?” A sly look had entered Petunia’s eyes.

“None of your responsibility,” Minerva replied simply. “Hogwarts is firmly in Magical British territory, thus as your niece’s Magical Guardian, I will be legally and financially responsible for dealing with her fees and everything else to do with her attendance.”

“And compensation for looking after her all these years? Surely your government or someone ought to have a fund?”

Minerva gave Petunia her best you’ve-overstepped-your-bounds,-missy stare. “I’m afraid you will have to speak with Headmaster Dumbledore about that. He placed your niece in your care in his capacity as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, and would know about any stipend for care and support of the war orphans, and why nothing reached you, if indeed such a thing exists.” She saw absolutely no reason to inform Petunia that the Potters held a moderately large fortune, inherited from James’ ancestors. It only existed in Magical Britain, after all.

“Now then, I believe I ought to meet Miss Potter and explain the situation to her, and if you are both agreeable, I will take her with me when I leave.”

“Certainly,” said Petunia, with a trace of a genuine smile, the first Minerva had seen. “Girl!” she shrieked, “Sitting room, now!”

A moment later, a dark-haired waif wearing a too-large yellow sundress appeared in the doorway, head down. “Yes, Aunt Petunia?”

* * *

Mary Potter lay on the bed in the smallest bedroom (which she couldn’t quite bring herself to think of as  _hers_ ), staring at the ceiling and waiting for something to happen. She had been told to go to the bedroom and wait. It was not quite the same as being locked in her cupboard, because the bedroom didn’t have a lock, but Aunt Petunia had made it clear that Mary was not to leave the room unless she was using the loo, or had been assigned chores around the house, or was summoned for a meal. She had flipped through all of the books and tried (and failed) to fix most of the broken toys and things that littered the shelves, and in the end had decided that the bedroom was not really so great an improvement over the cupboard after all. She thought it had been three days, but they rather blended together.

The letters had stopped on Tuesday. The first one had come on a Monday morning, and the second on Tuesday, but after that there had been no more, or else the Dursleys had managed to intercept them before Mary or Dudley heard anything about them. Mary knew Dudley couldn’t have heard anything, because if he had read one, or even been prevented from reading one, he would have told her, just to rub it in. Tuesday night, Mary had been sent to the bedroom and told to wait. She thought she had been allowed to have dinner on Wednesday.

After some time (maybe yesterday?), Aunt Petunia had come to the room Mary was kept in and given her a dress. It was yellow (which looked hideous on Mary), and far too large, but it was the only new thing she had ever owned and the only girl clothes she had ever had, either. She had thanked her aunt, hiding the suspicion triggered by the sudden gift, and received the order to clean herself up and put it on, then wait until she was called.

Mary had done so, and then watched the sun creep across the floor until she fell asleep. She slept for at least a little while, but still had no idea how long. Her stomach had long since stopped complaining, but her head didn’t hurt yet, so Wednesday’s dinner must not have been _so_ long ago. She thought it might be Friday.

“Girl!” she heard her aunt’s shrill voice call from downstairs, “Sitting room, now!” Mary was quietly impressed. You really had to shout to be heard all the way up here. At least in the Cupboard, she had been able to hear people talking. Here there was nothing, unless Dudley wanted to stand outside the door and taunt her. She stood at once, caught herself on the bed, somewhat dizzy from standing up too fast (and a lack of food), and hurried to the sitting room.

There was an older woman sitting with Aunt Petunia. Not that Mary would have called her _old_ , exactly. She had grey hair, and wore an old lady suit, but she was much more stern and _alive_ than old Mrs. Figg. Aunt Petunia looked vaguely pleased, which probably meant something bad was about to happen to Mary. She stood, as trained, head down and hands folded in front of her. “Yes, Aunt Petunia?”

“Sit down,” Petunia snapped. Mary took a seat on the edge of the sofa, as far from her aunt as she could. “This is Mrs. McGonagall. You’re going with her to a school for freaks like you. If we’re lucky, we’ll never have to see you again.”

Mary looked up, trying not to hope that this was true. She didn’t care where she went or with whom, so long as it was away from Privet Drive. “Mrs. Dursley, I will thank you to be _silent_ ,” the older woman snapped.

Petunia shut her mouth, looking somewhat surprised with herself, but Mrs. McGonagall’s glare brooked no argument.

“It’s Professor McGonagall, Miss Potter,” she said, turning to Mary with an encouraging smile, “And I am the Deputy Headmistress at a very special school for very special children.”

“So it’s true?” Mary asked quietly, giving her aunt a furtive glance.

“Yes, Miss Potter. You see, you are a witch, just as your mother before you. Your father was a wizard. They were two of my favorite students, a long time ago.”

“You knew my parents?”

“Yes, Miss Potter. You have your mother’s eyes. I’m sure they would be very proud of you. It was a terrible thing, their murder.”

“Murder?” for the first time since she had come downstairs, Mary spoke at full volume. She turned an accusing glare on her aunt. “You told me they died in a car crash!”

“Shut up and don’t ask questions,” Aunt Petunia snapped reflexively.

Professor McGonagall silenced her with a glare. “They were murdered in their home, your home, by a terrorist who called himself _Voldemort_ , because they fought in a war against him. They were good people, and most certainly did not die in a car crash.” Mary thought that if she hadn’t already been sitting, she might have fallen down. The older woman continued to speak, “We can talk more about that later. At the moment, I am here with good news, and we should not spoil it with talk of death and horrible things.”

“Did you say my mum was a witch?” It had taken a moment, but the woman’s words had finally penetrated the fog around Mary’s brain.

“Yes, Miss Potter. Magic is real. Your mother was a witch and your father a wizard. You are a witch as well.”

“I’m not a witch.” Mary might have been hungry and confused, but she was nearly positive that she would know if she was a witch. How ridiculous. Witches didn’t live in a cupboard, or get denied food for days at a time. Even if she was, Aunt Petunia would never allow it.

“Of course you are, Miss Potter.”

“How do you know?” she asked in a small voice.

The woman smiled. “Nothing odd has ever happened around you, that you couldn’t explain? Objects floating or things setting on fire or appearing when you needed them?”

“Erm… no? …Except, well… one time my teacher’s wig turned blue… and that jumper that just got smaller and smaller… and, well… I just appeared on a roof, once.”

“See, there you are. Little bits of your power showing itself, even before you knew what it was.”

“Don’t forget setting that damned snake on poor Dudley!” Petunia had nearly been forgotten by the two witches.

“She didn’t do anything to him, and I didn’t ask her to!” Mary protested.

Professor McGonagall looked at Mary for a long moment. “You speak to snakes, Mary?”

“Is that… normal? For witches?” she asked, suddenly very uncertain.

But the professor smiled again. “It is a rather unusual talent, but not unheard of. There was a boy in school a few years ahead of me who could do it. The language of serpents is called Parseltongue, but we can talk about that later, too. Here.” She pulled an envelope out of her bag. “This is your invitation letter. You should read it, and then we’ll talk about your housing arrangements.”

Mary had already started to open the envelope, but she paused to say, “I’ll go with you. Aunt Petunia said I was to go, and I want to go.”

“Read your letter, first, dear.”

It was very short. Mary read aloud: “’Dear Miss Potter, We are pleased to inform you that you are invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for your secondary educational needs. A representative of the school will contact you in order to answer any questions you might have in the last week of July. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on 1st September. We await your response no later than 31st July.’ And then there’s a form letter and an address to send it, and a list of supplies and things. Robes, and books, and a cauldron. You’re not having me on, are you?” she asked suspiciously.

“No, Miss Potter. The uniform really does involve robes, and you will need a cauldron and spellbooks.”

“It says I can bring a pet! Can I have a snake?”

Mary actually sounded excited for the first time since she had joined them in the sitting room. Unfortunately, the professor had to say, “No, Miss Potter. An owl, a cat, or a toad. No snakes.”

“Yes, Professor McGonagall,” Mary said, subdued again at once.

“So, you accept that you are a witch, and you would like to attend Hogwarts this year?”

“Yes, please. Do I need to send the letter?”

“No, it’s a form letter for all muggleborn students. I’ll take your yes in person for your acceptance.”

“What’s a muggle?”

“A non-magical person.”

“A _normal_ person,” said Petunia at the same time.

And then a realization struck Mary. “You knew! You _knew_ , and you never told me! Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because after my idiot sister and that good-for-nothing husband of hers went and got themselves killed, Vernon and I thought we could raise you to be normal and have a decent life, without any of that weirdness. But you’re just the same as her, you little brat! Just as weird and freakish and _abnormal_!”

“Petunia Dursley!” the professor snapped, her tone like ice, “If you cannot keep a civil tongue in your head, you are welcome to leave us.”

And wonder of wonders, Aunt Petunia stood and walked into the kitchen without another word, slamming the door behind her.

As soon as she was gone, Mary became more animated. “I know it says September first, but when’s the soonest I can leave?” she whispered excitedly.

“You needn’t whisper, child,” Professor McGonagall said in a comforting voice. “Your aunt and uncle are in agreement with you on this. They have requested that you be placed in the care of a Magical Guardian and removed from their home as soon as possible.” Mary would have bet a lot of money, if she had any money, that they had not said anything nearly so nice. Then the professor added in an even softer tone, “They would prefer not to see you again, after you leave.”

Mary looked a bit confused. “You sound like that’s a bad thing. When can we go? Wait, who’s my guardian?”

The older witch looked a bit embarrassed. “I am. Your aunt and I signed the paperwork already. As soon as we enter the magical world, you will be my responsibility.”

Mary thought about this for a moment. “Okay. You seem nice enough. And you made Aunt Petunia shut up, which _must_ be magic. But, um… please don’t take this personally, but… What if I decide later, that I want to change my guardian?” She said this very quickly, and then cringed a bit, as though expecting something to be thrown at her.

“No offence taken, Miss Potter. None at all.” If anything, Minerva was pleased that her new ward was thinking this through. “You would talk to your ministry case worker, Mr. Fulton, and he would work with you and your new guardian to arrange the paperwork.” She hunted yet another piece of paper from the depths of her purse, which she passed to Mary. “This is his card. You will have a meeting with him on Monday. I’ll show you how to use the Floo, that’s his Floo directory, if you need to talk to him. And if there is an emergency, the card will function as a port-key. You simply touch it and say “Gerald Fulton’s Office” and it will take you to him. Okay?”

Mary set the card down carefully before saying “Gerald Fulton’s Office. Got it. So can I go home with you tonight?”

Professor McGonagall finally relented. “Yes, Miss Potter, I live at Hogwarts, and we will be returning to the Castle this afternoon.”

“I’ll go get my things!” Mary yelled as she ran out of the room.

Five minutes later she returned, slightly out of breath, with what looked like a battered grey pillowcase. It did not hold all of her worldly belongings, but it did hold all her clothes worth keeping, and her toothbrush, and a few found treasures that she had managed to keep over the years. “I’m ready. We can go now.”

Professor McGonagall looked at Mary as though she wanted desperately to say something, but had thought better of it. “Mrs. Dursley,” she called in the direction of the kitchen. “We are leaving now, if you would like to say goodbye to your niece.”

Petunia returned only to sneer at Mary and say, “Good riddance.”

Minerva decided that that was the last straw: she grabbed the child’s hand tightly and apparated away, nevermind the fact that it was terrible manners to disapparate inside someone’s home. They appeared at the gates of Hogwarts, and Mary said, “Same to you,” before she realized that they had changed locations. Then she just gaped at the castle before her.


	6. Chapter 5: Orientation

###  Friday, 26 July – Friday, 2 August 1991

#### Hogwarts

Mary quickly learned that Professor McGonagall was a very busy woman.

After arriving at the gates through that horrible squishing sensation called Apparition, they had flown to the castle on a broom (an actual flying broomstick!). The professor had taken enough time to make an extra circle around the castle and the lake, so that Mary could see it in all its glory, but soon enough they were at the entrance hall.

As soon as they stepped inside, the professor changed her clothes from the old lady suit to what looked like fancy black choir robes with red and gold trim by waving a magic wand. It was the first real magic that Mary had gotten to see (except for the teleporting spell and the flying broom). The professor then led Mary up several staircases (some of which moved!), down corridors, and through passageways hidden behind tapestries, all the while talking about the history of the school, and what would be expected of Mary while she was a guest and not yet a student. She summarized it in her head as “Don’t go wandering off and getting lost; don’t make trouble; if in doubt, stay in your room until someone fetches you.”

And she had no problem with those rules, after seeing the room that had been prepared for her. It was huge, almost as big as the Dursleys’ living room, with a big four-poster bed and a fireplace. There were books stacked on a desk in the corner, and a table with chairs, as though she might have guests to play cards or something. There was a small couch, and a soft carpet in the middle of the floor. The furniture and curtains were all red and silver, and the walls and were the same rough, light-brownish-grey stone of the outside of the castle. Mary thought it was the prettiest room she had ever seen.

And then, wonder of wonders, the professor had set a _house elf_ , a two-foot-tall creature with giant eyes and even larger ears, to look after Mary. Her name was Cammy, and Mary was told to ask Cammy if she needed anything at all, or if she was exploring the castle and got lost, or if she just wanted company. Just call her name, and she would appear with a pop. No one had _ever_ looked after Mary before. It was, she found, a bit uncomfortable, having someone wait on her, but the dinner Cammy brought her that first night in the castle was more than worth any amount of awkwardness.

Cammy had also been the one to find (or make, Mary never did get a straight answer) several sets of the full bloomers and blouses that the professor said young witches wore under their robes. The professor had been very upset to find Mary wearing her favorite tee-shirt dress on Saturday morning. She had gone off muttering about muggles and neglect and ‘absolutely disgraceful!’ for a full five minutes before ordering Cammy to find proper clothes for Mary. Mary was slightly offended. She thought she had done a very good job of taking in the overly large shirt. It nipped in at the waist and came to just above her knees, just like a real dress. The only problem was the arms, which were far too large. And it was dark green, which suited her better than the yellow sundress Aunt Petunia had given her.

Later on Saturday, Mary had met the Headmaster, who looked like a wizard from a story book, and not a real wizard at all, with his long silver beard and robes with the stars on. He had said a lot of things that didn’t really make much sense about love and protection, and avoided telling her why he’d left her with the Dursleys in the first place, which was what she’d asked him. She had also asked him if she could have a pet snake, thinking that if anyone could bend the rules, it would be the Headmaster, but he said no as well, and his reaction when she told him that she could talk to snakes was much more ominous than the professor’s. He went ‘Hmmmmmm’ and stroked his beard for a long while, before asking her a load of questions about what she thought of people and her “values” and her life with the Dursleys before going ‘Hmmmm’ for an even longer time, and then sweeping out of the red and silver room as mysteriously as he had arrived. He was, she decided, a rather _strange_ man.

On Sunday, the professor asked her what she had told the headmaster and she shrugged before summarizing their conversation in a few words: “The truth or, you know, part of the truth. I can talk to snakes, most people are stupid, I hate it when people are lazy and make up excuses, and the Dursleys were _horrible_.” The professor had raised an eyebrow at her and given her a _look_ (for trying to go around her back, Mary thought). “Don’t worry, he said I couldn’t have a snake either. Will you tell me about my parents now? And Voldemort and the war?”

The professor had done so. Mary learned more about her parents that Sunday evening than she had in her entire life with the Dursleys. Her mother had been a healer on the front lines of the war, and her father an auror, like a wizard MI5 agent. They had both been Gryffindors, which was the professor’s House, and fought for the Light (the professor always said that like it had a capital letter) against Voldemort. Lily had fought for muggleborn rights as well. That was how Mary learned that muggleborns like Lily were considered second-class citizens in Magical Britain. Voldemort had tried to kill them all off, like Hitler with the Jews, which is why Lily had fought him. She had to fight or die, and James had followed her into that fight, even though his family were wizards going back hundreds of years.

And then Mary had learned all about Voldemort’s War, and why no one said his name, even now, and why, of all the ridiculous things in the universe, she was famous for defeating a terrible dark wizard at the age of one. At first she thought that was a horrible, unfunny joke, but the professor insisted it was true. She explained that the scar on Mary’s forehead was from where Voldemort had tried to kill Mary as a baby, and that his body had burnt up, but there were certain wizards, the Headmaster among them, who thought that he wasn’t really dead and gone, but had somehow survived and would be back. She explained that Mary was a hero in Magical Britain, and everyone knew her name. That was why people had come up to her and shaken her hand in the streets – they had recognized her as her parents’ child, and wanted to thank her for saving their world.

The professor had also explained (rather too late, in Mary’s opinion, since she had already told the Headmaster) that Mary shouldn’t go around telling people she could talk to snakes, because Voldemort had also been able to talk to snakes, and people had the idea that it was a thing only evil wizards and witches could do. Mary thanked her for this advice, but silently resolved to ignore it, on the grounds that most people were stupid. She was _not_ evil, and she could talk to snakes, therefore it was not a thing only evil witches could do, and she would prove it. Mary Potter the witch would not hide in plain sight like Mary Potter the muggle had done, pretending as hard as she could to be normal and _lying_ about who she really was.

By the end of the conversation, Mary had come to the conclusion that she really did not want to deal with the attention that being the Girl Who Lived was bound to bring her. She hadn’t done anything, and didn’t want to be famous for something she didn’t even remember. She asked the professor in complete seriousness if she would refer to her as Mary Evans, which she knew was her mum and Aunt Petunia’s maiden name, or maybe even _Elizabeth_ Evans, in public. The professor had considered for a long moment before agreeing to call her Elizabeth Evans when they went to Diagon Alley, but not at Hogwarts. Too many other professors, including the Headmaster, she said, would never agree.

On Monday morning, the professor took Mary to the Ministry, to talk to her Child Services caseworker, Mr. Fulton, who had kind eyes and a quiet voice. He had reassured her that if she was ever uncomfortable with her guardian situation, she should alert him immediately, and they had talked a good bit about her life with the Dursleys and everything the Professor had done for her at Hogwarts already.

After their meeting, Mr. Fulton took the Professor aside, and apparently insisted that Mary needed a physical, because their next stop was an unplanned trip to St. Mungo's, the wizarding hospital. The doctors there, called Healers, performed several diagnostic spells which informed them that, although she was underfed and small for her age, there was nothing wrong with Mary that wouldn't be fixed by a steady supply of regular meals. They also noted that the prescription for Mary's (recently repaired) glasses was slightly out of date, but not so badly that she needed new lenses.

After the Healers released them, Mary and the professor had gone to the bank, which was run by goblins (goblins!), to establish Mary as the Potter Heir, order a copy of her parents' will and deposition, and collect a bag of wizard money, so that Mary could go shopping with the muggleborn students later in the week. It took much longer than Mary thought it should. They had her key, and everything, but the goblins wanted a drop of blood to confirm that Mary was who she said she was. The professor didn't want to give it to them, though Mary didn't see the harm in it. Eventually the goblins caved, after the professor talked at them for several minutes in their own language. Mary thought she might have been swearing at them, but she couldn't be sure. Goblin might have been one of those languages like German, where everything sounds like swearing.

Mary thought the ride to the vault in the tunnels and caves under the bank was the most fun she had ever had, but it made the professor look a bit ill. Mary, on the other hand, didn’t begin to feel ill until the vault was opened – then she nearly fainted trying to come to terms with the idea that all that gold and silver was hers. And _then_ the professor had said that it wasn’t even the real Potter Family Vault, just Mary’s trust fund. She decided that it might be best if she didn’t think about the money for a while. She desperately wanted to see more of Diagon Alley – she had just had a glimpse of it, between the Ministry building and the Bank – but the professor had to go meet with the Honorable Mr. and Mrs. Finch-Fletchley, and so Mary had to be returned to Hogwarts.

On Wednesday, Mary and Cammy celebrated Mary’s eleventh birthday. The professor gave her a framed moving photograph of her parents at their graduation, and a giant man named Hagrid had come to visit her for tea. He had known her parents as well, and said he knew her as a baby. He brought her a cake and they talked about magical creatures for the rest of the afternoon. He offered to take her into the Forbidden Forest “to have a bit of a look-see” on Friday, but the professor had said that the Forbidden Forest was forbidden for a reason, and she’d not have Hagrid getting her ward killed before the school year even started. He was, however, allowed to show her around the grounds, and the non-Forbidden part of the Forest, which was called the Senior Woods, he said, because the upperclassmen would sneak out and hold parties there, had forever.

On Thursday, the professor announced that the Muggleborn Shopping Excursion would take place on Saturday, and Mary, who had remembered that the professor had said her father’s people were wizards for hundreds of years, asked about his family, her more distant relatives. They spent the evening looking at family trees and talking about what it meant, to have a family whose history went back apparently forever.

Friday, as promised, Hagrid had come to collect Mary bright and early, and they had walked around the grounds, from the lake to the Senior Woods to the Quidditch pitch, where they met Madam Hooch, the Flying Instructor and Quidditch Referee.

Madam Hooch let Mary ride a broom for the first time by herself, just once around the pitch. It was the best feeling Mary had ever had. It was like the first time she had stolen Dudley’s bike and ridden down the big hill in Little Whinging, except _better_ , because she wasn’t tied to the ground and didn’t have to pedal back up the hill after. She thought that she might have been born for flying. Madam Hooch and Hagrid told her all about Quidditch, a sport that sounded rather like football, played on brooms, or perhaps polo without mallets. There was no time limit, since it ended when a flying ball called the snitch was caught, and at least two other players tried to knock you off your broom with something called a bludger. It sounded confusing, but maybe fun. Mary thought she would rather like to give it a try.

The three of them stole apples from Greenhouse One for lunch, and then Hagrid showed Mary his house, which was like a small cabin built on a very large scale. They had tea there, and Hagrid told her more about her parents, especially her father’s friends, three other Gryffindors who called themselves the Marauders and played pranks on everyone, but especially the Slytherins, who were Gryffindor’s main rival in the school. Then Hagrid got sad and said that the end of the Marauders’ story was one he didn’t want to tell. That only made Mary curious, of course, and after a bit of badgering, Hagrid had told her about how her godfather, Sirius Black, had betrayed her parents, and killed their friend Peter Pettigrew, who went to confront him on the morning after her parents had died. Remus Lupin, the last Marauder, had disappeared for years after that.

Mary was more confused than upset. She had just learned, after all, that she was a witch, her parents had been murdered, and that she was considered the savior of the wizarding world. To find that her family had been betrayed was a shock, but not a very large one, compared to the others. She just hadn’t thought that her parents would have been such poor judges of character, to make the murderous friend her godfather. She resolved to send a letter to the Last Marauder, Remus Lupin, once she figured out the whole owl-post business. The walk back to the castle after tea was rather subdued.

Between talking to the professor, who sat with her in the evenings sometimes, and the Headmaster and Hagrid, Mary read through the books on the desk, which turned out to be mostly history books, about the magical world. The professor, or maybe Cammy, must have picked them out with her in mind, since one of them was on the Potter family specifically. One was on Voldemort’s war, though it was called the Last Wizarding War in the book (Voldemort was ‘He-who-must-not-be-named’ or ‘The Dark Lord V—’). Her favorite was called _Hogwarts, a History_ and between lots of information about boring things like the renovation of the plumbing in 1874 and lists of subjects of the talking portraits (the portraits at Hogwarts _moved_! And _talked_! Like a film, but _better_ , because they could actually hold a conversation), it had stories about the founders and their houses, and notable modern wizards from each house. She spent a lot of time thinking about which house might suit her best, and in the end decided that it was Slytherin, though she would probably do alright in any of them, if she had to. Well, maybe not Ravenclaw. She would never love learning for its own sake. She really only liked learning new things if they were useful. Besides, Slytherin house was the snake house, and she liked snakes more than lions or eagles or badgers.

Minerva, for her part, was pleased enough to find that whenever she poked her head into Mary’s room to check on her, she was reading or asking Cammy about the wizarding world, or, on one memorable occasion, trying to get Cammy to teach her games that Wizarding children played (there had been Gobstone goo _everywhere_ ). She allowed the girl to order meals to her room, and when she needed a break from the reams of paperwork and Dumbledore’s disappointed how-could-you-meddle-in-my-plans and resentful you-made-me-deal-with-the-Dursleys looks, she took an evening off to sit and talk with the girl. Mary, unlike most young people today, actually _wanted_ to hear Minerva reminisce about her parents and even grandparents, who Minerva had gone to school with.

Minerva told Mary about growing up during the Rise of Grindelwald, and fighting Voldemort (though she didn’t mention she had also known him in school, and she hoped that Mary wouldn’t put it together from her mention of a boy who had spoken Parseltongue). She told Mary more than she probably should have about Magical British Politics as she complained about her days – there was no way the girl could really understand it without more context. And when asked, she found the Potter family tree, and then the Prewetts’, and the Blacks’, so that the girl could see how she was related to the other Old Families, even though so many of them had died in the war. She talked about what was expected of a pureblood witch, and worried aloud that it might be difficult for Mary, whose mother was muggleborn, but whose father was pureblood, and who had been raised by muggles and was famous to boot, to fit in with her more or less distant cousins.

Later, when Dumbledore asked her about it, she worried that she might have said too much, telling the girl about the wars and politics and blood status prejudice, but in the end she decided she hadn’t. She could never tell her enough about her family to make up for the lost years of the girl’s childhood, and the little she had really said about the wars and politics was the least she could do to try to return the child’s birthright. She should have grown up with James Potter, learning all of this at his knee, as befit the Heir of any Noble House. It was the least Minerva could do as a scion of House McGonagall, to teach the Potter Heir what little she could about the strange new world she had been thrown into. After all, House Potter had saved them all, in 1981, whether it was Mary’s doing or, as the girl insisted, her parents’.

###  Saturday, 3 August 1991

#### Diagon Alley

Saturday dawned cloudy and humid. Mary woke early, fairly buzzing with excitement. Today was the day they would go shopping for school supplies, and Mary would get to meet other students. She dressed in one of the bloomers-and-blouse combinations Cammy had provided. The bloomers were black and the shirt a green a little darker than her eyes. She tied her hair back in a ponytail, but made sure to leave part of it down, tucked behind her ear so that it would cover her scar, because the Professor had said that was how people recognized her as the Girl Who Lived – the lightning-shaped scar from the failed killing curse.

Then she asked Cammy to take her to the professor, since she still had yet to figure out her way around the castle. The professor was in her office, as she nearly always was, and insisted that Mary eat something before they leave, and also put on a robe – going out without one was like going out in one’s underclothes. When Mary protested that she did not _have_ a robe, the professor summoned one of hers and shrank it until it was small enough to fit Mary. Cammy brought the two witches toast and fruit, and some of the weird sweetened water that the professor called pumpkin juice, even though it tasted nothing like pumpkins. It was more like lemonade made with some kind of melon, Mary thought.

At half past eight, Mary and the Professor apparated to a pub in London called the Leakey Cauldron, and went outside to wait for the other three students and their families to arrive. The Professor explained that normally, muggles couldn’t see the pub at all, so they couldn’t wait inside. Just a few minutes after they exited the pub, a black boy with very short hair, a backpack, and a parchment letter in hand was dropped off by his mother. He introduced himself to Mary as Dean Thomas, and explained that his mum had to work, and couldn’t come with them. Mrs. Finch-Fletchley and her son Justin were the next to show up. He was a tall boy with dirty blond hair and a sneer that said he thought himself better than the other children. She was a very posh lady with an enormous purse who looked entirely out of place on the street by a pub. Justin started talking at once about how he had been planning to attend Eton in the fall, before he’d gotten his letter. Dean and Mary shared an eye-roll behind his back. Last to arrive, just before the actual appointed time, were the doctors Granger, and their daughter Hermione. Both the Grangers were dentists, and had closed their practice for the day to see the Alley. Hermione was a bubbly and outgoing girl whose face was almost lost beneath a mop of brown curls.

The four children talked amongst themselves for a while as the adults sorted themselves out. Mary told them that they should call her Elizabeth when Dean asked her name. Hermione completely overwhelmed Justin’s talk of Eton and monopolized the conversation with a monologue about the Hogwarts houses and a multi-sided debate over which she thought she might prefer. Hermione, like Dean, had brought a backpack, and had made a thorough list of everything she thought she needed in addition to the things on the actual list. When she exhausted the topic of school houses, she moved on to the list. No one else had bothered adding anything to it. Mary thought that she would just go around and pick up anything that seemed useful. There was a sudden silence, and it took the other three a moment to realize that Hermione had asked them about their families.

Justin said that obviously all of them had to be muggleborn, didn’t they, if they were here (despite the fact that Mary was clearly dressed like a witch, which Hermione pointed out), but Dean said that his father was a wizard, and had left when he was a baby. Mary volunteered that both her parents were magical, but they had died in the war, and she had been raised by muggle relatives, so she didn’t know much more about the magical world than any of them. Justin glared at them for contradicting him. Mary smirked. It served him right for making assumptions like that. She regretted saying anything almost at once, however, as Hermione immediately started asking more questions about where she lived and what her aunt and uncle did. When Mary finally admitted that she was staying at the school until school started, and that there weren’t really any other kids around, the other girl immediately invited her to come visit the Grangers, or even stay with them for the rest of the summer, if she was bored. Mary declined, politely (she wasn’t bored at Hogwarts, and quite frankly, she didn’t know if she could stand more than a few hours in the company of the overwhelmingly outgoing Hermione), but Hermione didn’t look like she wanted to take no for an answer.

Finally, just after nine, the Professor rounded them up and herded the four children and three muggles through the pub and into the Alley. Just as before, it was filled with tantalizing glimpses of magical shops, and just as before, Mary was not allowed to go wandering off. The first stop was the bank, Gringotts’, again, so that the Grangers, Mrs. Finch-Fletchley, and Dean could change money. Mary already had hers in the pocket of her borrowed robes. She took advantage of the short walk from the pub to the bank to look at as many things and people as she could.

There was a stack of cauldrons outside a shop on the other side of the street, with a shingle advertising “Cauldrons – all sizes – copper, brass, pewter, silver – self-stirring, collapsible”

There was an apothecary, its display full of piles of herbs and roots, and towers of glass jars full of unidentifiable slimy things, and strange cuts of meat laid out on ice like a fishmarket.

There was a shop full of owls, and another with broomsticks in the window. Already there were several passers-by slowing to look at these, the sign advertising the Nimbus Two-Thousand as the Fastest Ever Racing Broom.

There were robe-shops and stands selling fiddly little silvery instruments; shops for astronomy, displaying telescopes and globes of the moon; another apothecary, with barrels labeled ‘bat spleens’ and ‘eels’ eyes’ in the window; a book store, and right next door, a stationary shop, and then a shop which looked like it sold nothing but different-sized bottles.

* * *

The bank itself was still terribly impressive, all white marble and giant bronze doors. Hermione gasped a bit at the sight of the door-guard goblin. Mary noticed a poem on the inside doors that she had not seen the last time:

Enter, stranger, but take heed  
Of what awaits the sin of greed,  
For those who take but do not earn,  
Must pay most dearly in their turn.  
So if you seek beneath our floors  
A treasure that was never yours,  
Thief, you have been warned, beware  
Of finding more than treasure there.

The adults approached the tellers, Professor McGonagall going with Dean. Mary found a bench and sat down, watching the goblins writing in ledgers, weighing out gold, and looking at precious stones through jewelers’ loupes. They weren’t very busy so early in the morning, which was probably why Professor McGonagall had arranged the shopping trip to start when she did. Only a few people were being led to their vaults. One was a man about Aunt Petunia’s age. He told his daughter to wait for him to come back, and she came over to sit by Mary.

“Do you think,” Mary asked quietly, nodding at the nearest goblin, who was weighing the same pile of gold for the third time, “That they’re really doing important things with all that gold? Or are they just putting us on?”

“Father says they do all the real work in the vaults. This is just for show,” the girl confirmed with a smirk. “Morgana Yaxley, third year Slytherin.” She held out a hand, and Mary shook it. “Are you starting Hogwarts this year?”

Mary nodded. “You can call me Elizabeth,” she said smoothly, or so she thought.

“I can _call_ you Elizabeth? What’s your name really?” the girl asked with a laugh.

Mary froze for a second, then it came to her. She winked broadly and said with a grin, “That would be telling.”

Morgana laughed again. Apparently that was a right answer. “I like you, Lizzie. I bet you’re a Slytherin. You’re not the Parkinson girl, or a Bulstrode… who else is starting this year? Greengrass? You’re not Daphne Greengrass are you? No, wait, I think the Greengrass girls are all blonde… You look like a Black, but they haven’t got any children. Maybe a Rosier then? They intermarried enough. Amanda Rosier? Or Carina?”

“Nope!” Mary said cheerfully. She knew her father had taken after his mother, who was a Black. She must look like her too, she thought. “You’ll never guess. But you’ll find out at the Sorting. I’m sure the Professor won’t call me Elizabeth at school.”

“Hmmm…Who else looks like the Blacks? Some of the Lestranges, I guess, and Andromeda Tonks, obviously, but her only daughter just graduated. The Notts have a kid about your age, I think, but I think he’s a boy. Same for House Crabbe. Melisandre Flint?”

“No. Look, the professor is waving. I have to go.”

“Professor? Are those muggles? You’re not _muggleborn_?”

“Wrong again. See you at school, Morgana Yaxley!” Mary jumped up from the bench and headed for her group with a grin and a wave over her shoulder.

The professor was explaining Wizarding currency when Mary joined them “—seventeen sickles to the galleon, and twenty-nine knuts to a sickle, or 493 knuts to a galleon. As the exchange is set at five pounds to the galleon, its’ easiest to think of a knut as a penny and a sickle as about thirty pence. And use exact change when you can. The shopkeepers will know you’re muggles, and some of them _will_ try to shortchange you. Keep an ear out for what others are charged, and ask me if you think someone is trying to overcharge you. Every year there’s at least one family that ends up paying twice what they ought for books or a cauldron…”

* * *

The next stop was a robe shop, Madam Malkin’s, just a few stalls down from the bank. Professor McGonagall led them in and began ordering the assistants about. Madam Malkin entered the room after a moment, and she and the professor greeted each other warmly.

“This lot the new muggleborns, then?”

“Indeed. The annual shopping trip of doom. How’s the shop doing this season?”

Mary lost track of their conversation as an assistant led her to a little stand-thing, asked her to strip down to her underclothes, and began taking her measurements with an enchanted tape-measure.

Hermione was right beside her, on the other side of a thin curtain. “Elizabeth, who was that girl you were talking to at the bank?” she asked, lack of eye contact apparently no deterrent to her chattiness.

“Morgana Yaxley, third year Slytherin,” Mary replied.

“Was she nice? From the literature Professor McGonagall gave me, it sounds like Slytherin’s a selfish house, always looking out for number one, you know?”

“No, it’s not! You should read _Hogwarts, a History_. It talks about Salazar Slytherin and the values of each house. Slytherin is all about striving for excellence, and being self-sufficient when no one’s looking out for you but yourself. And yes, Morgana was perfectly nice.” The shopboy handed Mary a robe, and she put it on.

“What does _Hogwarts, a History_ say about Ravenclaw?” Hermione asked, neatly ignoring the fact that Mary had corrected her. “I think that might be the house for me, but I don’t know yet…”

“Ravenclaw’s the house for students who love to learn for the sake of knowledge itself. It sounds to me like the place for people who like research, but not applying it, honestly. But if that’s your thing…” The assistant was now doing something with pins around Mary’s ankles. She ignored him and let him do his job, as he had more or less ignored her and her conversation.

“I love learning, and books, and reading. But I also like the idea of figuring out how to use what I know to do something good.”

“Hmmm… Maybe you’ll be a Gryffindor, if you really want to do something good.” The shop assistant flipped back the curtain, and Mary admired her reflection. “What do you think?” she asked Hermione.

“I feel like I’m in a nightgown,” the other girl replied, lifting her arms to the sides. “It’s just so… shapeless.”

“I know! At least we get to wear pants under them, though.” She turned and finally spoke to the shop assistant who had managed her fitting. She swallowed hard, and reminded herself that it was his job to help her get what she needed. “I need a full set of Hogwarts’ uniforms,” she couldn’t remember exactly what had been on the list, but the young man nodded anyway, which she took as encouraging, “and eight sets of underclothes, these bloomers and blouses, erm… solid colors, dark for the bloomers, and nothing brighter than this green I’m wearing for the blouses, please. And is there anything else you recommend?”

“Boots,” the assistant said, looking at her worn trainers, which were lying in a corner by the mirror. He seemed taken aback that a customer had actually asked him for advice. “Proper ones, with a one or two inch heel. I’ll make a note to drop your hems accordingly. And maybe a couple of skirts, for winter? My sisters always wear skirts under their robes when it’s cold out. And probably by next year you’ll want to have proper brassieres and shirtwaists, not just the undershirts,” he added, blushing a bit. “Upper years’ uniforms call for shirts and ties, anyway.”

“Three each of the skirts and shirtwaists, then. Do you carry boots? Or would I have to go to another shop?” she ignored the comment about bras. She was _eleven_ , for God’s sake, and flat as a board.

“Daily’s, next door, does the best boots. If you run over and get that sorted, we should have your order ready by the time you get back.”

“Great. Thank you…”

“Liam. Liam O’Connell.”

“Thank you, Mr. O’Connell.” She smiled sweetly at him, and went to tell the professor she needed to go to another shop.

* * *

Mary returned, new boots snug on her feet, and her ratty old trainers in a rubbish bin, to find that Mrs. Finch-Fletchley was arguing with Madam Malkin over the quality of fabric used for her son’s robes. Everyone else was done. Mary paid for her clothes and took the two large bags Mr. O’Connell presented. Mrs. Finch-Fletchley was still trying to convince Madam Malkin that they wanted silk robes, because they were the best. Madam Malkin insisted that silk was not appropriate for daily wear. Finally, Justin snapped at his mother, “Just pay for the damned robes, mum. I don’t want to wear silk, anyway! It’s girly!” That settled it, apparently. Mrs. Finch-Fletchley handed over a pile of gold and silver coins with a final glare, and the lot of them continued down the Alley.

They bought trunks next, which were enchanted to follow the students around, so no one had to hold the bags, and then went to something called a Potioneering Supply Center, where they found the cauldrons, phials and scales on the list, and a packet of knives and stirring rods that the professor said would be useful, but not required. They spent some time looking around the ingredient supplies (Mrs. Finch-Fletchley looked revolted by almost all of it), but the professor insisted that they weren’t to buy anything – all their ingredients would be covered by their potions lab fee, and supplied by the school.

There was a shop with astronomy instruments, where Mr. Dr. Granger was appalled at what they were calling ‘telescopes.’ The children bought them anyway, and the astrolabe and sextant that came in the “telescope kit” on the list. Hermione wanted to buy a chronometer, but her mother and the professor eventually convinced her that she didn’t need it.

Dean and Mary found “dragon hide” gloves at a stall, but thankfully they brought the professor over to see them before they bought them, because she said they were really only Erumpet leather. Erumpet leather, it turned out, was fine for the purposes on their school supply list, but the stallkeeper was charging way too much.

They went to a book store, where everyone spent ages longer than they needed to. The school books were easy enough to find, because the first and second year required books were sold in one big packet for new students, but there were so many _other_ books to look at, on fascinating subjects like _Goblin Wars, the Complete Compendium,_ _Curses for Your Friends and Enemies_ and _Magicobiology: A Beginner’s Guide to Magical Creatures_. The doctors Granger were as fascinated by the books as the children, and ended up at the register with about twenty books between them on history and magical theory. Mr. Dr. Granger was talking very fast to his wife about evolution and magical creatures, but she kept telling him that they needed to focus on the present, before worrying about how magic and science were related. Hermione made sure her mother bought a copy of _Hogwarts, a History_.

After the bookstore, they had taken lunch at an outdoor teashop, where Hermione had asked her parents and Professor McGonagall if “Elizabeth” might come stay with the Grangers for the last few weeks of summer. Her parents agreed at once – Mary couldn’t imagine why – and after a few moments, the professor agreed as well.

Minerva had been speaking with the Grangers throughout the day, and thought that they would be a very suitable foster family, at least for the remainder of August. She could get on with her lesson plans and reading the latest theoretical advances in transfiguration and arithmancy, which had been sadly neglected over July as she picked up the administrative slack. And Hermione might actually manage to bring Mary out of her shell a bit. It had not escaped Minerva’s notice that the girl was far more relaxed around other children than adults.

Then in an unprecedented move, Mrs. Dr. Granger asked whether “Elizabeth” actually _wanted_ to come stay with them. No one had ever asked Mary’s opinion on anything like a visit before.  With all eyes on her, Mary had not been able to bring herself to refuse the invitation again, and so she agreed to go home with the Grangers. It wasn’t as though she had actually left anything of her own at the Castle, as everything she actually owned was in her trunk, and Hermione had calmed down a lot after they had started shopping. Even now, she was eyeing the bag of books as though she would rather be reading than talking to anyone. So it might not be so bad after all, staying with her. Mary did make the professor promise to tell Cammy and Hagrid that she was sorry she hadn’t said goodbye, and that she would see them at the beginning of the year.

After lunch, they had gone to a stationary store, where the children were variously amused, intrigued, and appalled that they would be expected to write on _parchment_ with _quills_. Mary was suddenly very pleased that she had agreed to go home with Hermione, because it meant she would have a chance to buy some real pens and pencils in the muggle world before returning to school. They had bought scrolls of parchment and parchment notebooks for each class, bound in card-stock, as well as quills and ink bottles. Hermione had bought a day-planner, and Mary had grabbed a black, leather-bound journal, thinking that she might like to make notes on all the interesting things that she had been told about Magical Britain, or things that otherwise seemed important, or mysteries that she ought to look up. She asked Mrs. Dr. Granger for a proper pen, and went outside to make a list as Dean and Justin debated the merits of color-changing ink and Dicta-quills, and Mr. Dr. Granger examined a Dicta-type, which claimed to be a voice-activated typewriter. Hermione and Mrs. Finch-Fletchley had disappeared into an aisle of ridiculously outrageous feather quills, and the professor was talking to the shopowner, as she had at every other shop.

~v^v~

_Does Professor McG know everyone?_

_Write a letter to Remus Lupin, the Last Marauder._

_Morgana Yaxley – related? If so, how?_

_Who were all those people she mentioned?_

_Damn it._

_Cousins at Hogwarts?_

_What did the professor say to the goblins?_

_Money…_

_How much? Access? Income?_

_Does Prof. McG take care of it?_

_When is next appointment with Fulton? Before September? ASK!_

_Learn to write with a quill… or buy pens_

_Need ₤s_

~^v^~

She almost added a line about how to get back to the castle, but then decided that she would just go with Hermione, however she was supposed to get there. Eventually, the rest of the group joined Mary outside, and Mary returned Mrs. Dr. Granger’s pen. Both boys had gotten the color-changing ink, but Mrs. Finch-Fletchley had apparently forbidden Justin a dicta-quill, saying he would have to take notes or he would never learn, and Dean hadn’t been able to afford it.

They continued down the Alley for a few minutes in a disorganized mob, still marveling at the different storefronts, until Professor McGonagall stopped them outside a pet shop to discuss the line of the shopping list which said students could bring an owl, cat, or toad. It turned out that most students brought owls, because they could carry the mail. Toads had been popular about fifty years prior, but weren’t any longer. Cats were welcome in the castle because they largely took care of themselves and kept certain magical pests out, and owls were useful, but pets were a responsibility she did not recommend for first-years. First-years could use school owls to send post, and they could always get a pet later, when they were used to Hogwarts and had a better sense of the time they would have to spend with an owl or cat.

They went into the shop, anyway, because the Grangers wanted an owl for their house in Kent so that they wouldn’t have to wait for Hermione to send a letter when they wanted to contact her. Mrs. Finch-Fletchley, of all people, fell in love with a haughty-looking snowy owl, and decided she needed one too. Dean was eyeing a little white kitten with a black eye-patch, but he admitted that he was really bad at taking care of animals. He, Hermione and Mary ended up looking at some of the more exotic pets while the adults and Justin looked at owls. There were crup puppies, which looked like some kind of terrier with a forked tail, but the shopkeeper said they were much more intelligent; fire crabs in stone cages, which looked like hermit crabs, with little flames on their backs instead of shells; a sleeping nest of some kind of black vipers, which Mary stared at longingly, but allowed to continue sleeping under their heat lamp; and a creature called a puffskein, that Hermione and Dean said looked like a tribble. They were playing with an Egyptian Demon Cat kitten (a tiny tawny thing, with downy little wings and bright red eyes) when the adults finally dragged them away with the lure of magic wands.

* * *

The outside of the wand shop was shabby-looking, a narrow building with peeling gold letters over the door and a single wand on a faded purple cushion in the window. It was called Ollivanders’, and claimed to have been in business since 382 BC, which Hermione said was ridiculous, because Britain hadn’t even been a real country in 382 BC. (She said it quietly, though, and before they stepped into the shop.)

The interior of Ollivanders’ was not much better – it was quite small, with a single spindly chair (Mrs. Finch-Fletchley claimed it), and paneled in dark wood which made it seem even smaller. Outside of the waiting area were shelves and shelves of long, thin boxes. A bell tinkled in the depths of the building as the four children, four adults, four floating trunks, and three owls in brass cages filed inside. Mary and Dean sat on their trunks, and the adults stacked Justin and Hermione’s by the door, then set the owl cages on top. Everyone stared around at the poorly lit shop. No one spoke, not even the professor. The owls hooted softly. Mary felt as though she had just entered a very strict library, or perhaps a kind of church, where speaking was simply _not done_. The very dust and silence seemed to tingle with some secret magic. It made the back of her neck prickle.

“Good afternoon,” said a soft voice. All eight of them jumped. An old man with wide, pale eyes had faded out of the gloom, and somehow managed to take them all by surprise.

“Mr. Ollivander,” Professor McGonagall said, her full Scottish accent shattering the sense of mystery and peace in the shop, “Someday I _will_ learn how you do that.”

Mr. Ollivander smiled and nodded, as though he knew she never would. “Professor McGonagall. And these must be the new muggleborn students, and their parents?”

“Of course. I did write ahead, if you recall.”

He nodded again, “Indeed, indeed. Who is first then?” His creepy, pale eyes swept over the children and alighted on Hermione. She grinned and stepped forward, more than willing to be the first to get her new wand.

“Excellent, my dear. Your name?” he asked, as a floating tape measure like the one at Madam Malkin’s approached her.

“Hermione Granger, sir.”

“Which is your wand arm?”

Hermione hesitated for a moment, then said, “I’m right-handed, sir.”

Apparently that was what he had meant, because he nodded and asked, “And when were you born?”

“Nineteenth September, sir, 1979.”

“Very good, very good… autumn woods, then, and perhaps, ah, yes! Do you prefer sandwiches or pasta?”

“Sandwiches,” Hermione said at once, though Mary didn’t know what that should have to do with anything.

“Decisive, very good.” He perused the shelves for a long moment, explaining as he did so: “Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard’s wand.

“Let’s try… this one.” He pulled a box from a shelf and opened it ceremoniously. “Holly and dragon heartstring, ten inches, stiff, best suited for transfiguration.”

Hermione lifted the wand, but almost immediately put it back. “It just… no,” she said.

Ollivander nodded. “Don’t be discouraged, dear. The wand chooses the wizard, or the witch, as the case may be. Try this one.” He pulled another box from a different shelf. “Apple from an ivy-bearing tree, dragon heartstring, nine and a half inches, flexible, and well-suited for illusions.”

This one was slightly better. A single blue spark shot from the end of it when she picked it up. All of the children and the parents jumped. Ollivander said, “No, not quite,” and Hermione put it back.

“Hazel and unicorn hair,” the old man said, “eleven inches, snappy, good for charms.” This one almost set its own box on fire when Hermione went to pick it up.

“Hmmm… Perhaps… vine, ten and three quarters inches, dragon heartstring, solid but flexible, well rounded wand.” This wand was evidently a match – it produced a fountain of blue and gold sparks when Hermione waved it. Her parents and the other children broke into spontaneous applause.

Dean went next, and found a wand made with fir and unicorn hair. Then Justin was matched with a willow and phoenix-feather wand.

Mary had been sitting quietly to the side throughout the proceedings, mostly ignored, which was the way she liked it. She had been watching and clapping along with the others, and getting steadily more excited to find her own wand. When Justin finished, she stepped forward.

The old man fixed his ghostly eyes on her properly for the first time, and they widened in shock. “Mary Potter! I’d know those eyes anywhere, just like your mother’s.”

The other children were confused “Mary? You told me your name was Elizabeth,” said Dean.

“It’s Mary Elizabeth, Dean,” she said, rolling her (apparently recognizable) eyes.

The old man had come over all solemn. “It seems only yesterday your mother was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches, long, swishy willow. Best for charmwork.”

He moved closer to Mary. She edged away, wishing he would blink.

“Your father, on the other hand, was mahogany, eleven inches, pliable. A little more power, excellent for transfiguration…”

The old wandmaker had come so close that Mary could see herself reflected in his misty eyes. They were focused on her forehead.

“And that’s where?” She supposed a bit of the scar must be visible through her hair. She pushed it back so he could see, grateful to have an excuse to step away. Mr. Ollivander reached out a long, white finger, but she let her hair fall again before he could touch her, and he finally backed off.

“I’m sorry to say I sold the wand that did it,” he said softly. “Thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Very powerful, especially in the wrong hands…If I’d known then…” He shook his head.

The silence stretched between them, and Mary thought she ought to say something. “It’s okay, Mr. Ollivander, really. You’re not responsible for anything Voldemort did.”

Mr. Ollivander and Professor McGonagall startled badly at the name, and everyone else looked at them in confusion.

“Oops, sorry,” said Mary.

“No, my dear, if anyone has the right to say that name, it is you,” said Mr. Ollivander, then changed the subject abruptly by turning to his shelves of boxes, the tape measure approaching her as it had done all the others, though he didn’t seem to pay it much attention.

“What was that all about?” Mrs. Dr. Granger asked. Professor McGonagall began to explain Voldemort’s War and the Mary Potter Legend in hushed tones. Mary ignored them, quietly furious that Mr. Ollivander had ruined her anonymity. No one else had looked twice at Elizabeth, surrounded as she was by the muggleborn students and their families.

“Try this one, beechwood and dragon heartstring, nine inches. Flexible,” the wandmaker said, snapping her out of her reverie.

Mary picked it up. Nothing happened. She waved it around a bit, but Mr. Ollivander said, “No,” so she put it back.

The next wand was maple and phoenix feather, and then ebony and unicorn hair. Then there were wands made of yew and holly, rowan, alder, hawthorn, and ash. A blackthorn wand gave her a few sparks, and a poplar wand felt unusually warm in her hand, but none of them produced anything like the others’ wands. She was beginning to feel quite self-conscious. The wand chooses the witch, Ollivander had said, but none of the wands seemed to want to choose _her_. The wandmaker seemed happy enough to just keep giving her different boxes, though, so she kept trying.

Finally, Ollivander said, “I wonder, now… yes, why not? An unusual combination. Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple.”

Mary took the wand, and there was a sudden warmth in her fingers. She raised it above her head and brought it down with a swish, sending a stream of red and silver sparks into the dusty air. _Finally_ , she thought with a wave of relief. The others clapped, and she set the wand carefully back in its box. Mr. Ollivander was muttering something: “Curious… how very curious indeed…”

“What’s curious?” Mary asked, and immediately regretted it as she was fixed with another pale stare.

“I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Miss Potter. Every single wand. It just so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand gave another feather – just one other. It is curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother… its brother was the wand that gave you that scar.”

Mary clenched her teeth, hard. She didn’t want to say something unfortunate, like perhaps it wasn’t really such a coincidence as all that, or that Mr. Ollivander was seriously creepy and could he please stop talking to her.

“Yes… thirteen and a half inches, yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the witch, remember… I think we must expect great things from you, Miss Potter. After all, He-who-must-not-be-named did great things – terrible, yes, but great…”

Mary shivered. She did not like Mr. Ollivander.

* * *

It was nearly five by the time they left the wand shop, and everyone seemed rather tired. Minerva double-checked that they had everything on the list, and then escorted the children and their families back to the Leakey Cauldron. She put charms on the students’ trunks so that the muggles wouldn’t notice anything unusual, and took her robe back from Mary, who insisted that the bloomers and blouse didn’t look so very odd as the robe to muggle eyes. Mrs. Dr. Granger eventually corroborated this, so Minerva stopped giving her ward scandalized looks for being out in her underthings.

Justin and Mrs. Finch-Fletchley had been the first to depart, heading for a car park up the road. Mary then bid her farewell, reminding her to pass on the girl’s apologies to Hagrid and Cammy. At the last second, she remembered to ask whether she had another appointment with Mr. Fulton before school, and Minerva had assured her she did not. The Grangers had thanked her for all her help, and then with a last cheery goodbye from Hermione, they had headed for their own car. Finally, Minerva had returned Dean to his home, as she had agreed with his mother she would, when the younger woman had insisted that she hadn’t the time to go shopping for magic books and so on.

It was not until she was back at Hogwarts, writing up an account of her day and reviewing her to-do list for the following day that she realized she was rather going to miss Miss Potter’s company in the evenings.

###  August, 1991

#### The Granger home, South of Maidstone, Kent

Dan and Emma Granger had been somewhat reluctant, at first, to allow their daughter to invite a perfect stranger into their home for an extended period of time, but when she did so, they could hardly say ‘no’. For one thing, they were still reeling from the revelation that there was a hidden world of magic, and the universe didn’t work exactly like they thought it did. For another, young Hermione, despite her outgoing nature, had never had many friends.

Hermione had asked in Flourish and Blotts if Elizabeth could come to stay with them, and they had told her to let them think about it. After a hurried, whispered conversation in a corner of the book shop, they agreed that it would be a small price to pay, having a house-guest for the rest of the month, if it meant that Hermione would enter Magical Britain with a friend by her side. Elizabeth seemed to be a polite, quiet child, and they had not missed her self-sufficiency in the bank and the clothing store. She could, they agreed, be a good influence on their fiercely intelligent but often rudely outspoken daughter.

When Hermione asked again over lunch if Elizabeth might come to stay, Emma was somewhat surprised to see that the dark-haired girl looked a bit… disturbed, perhaps, by the whole situation. She had rather expected that the two girls had worked it out before Hermione had asked them the first time. Dan said yes at once, and Emma gave him a knowing look before adding that it was fine, so long as Elizabeth actually wanted to come. Hermione had turned pleading eyes on the smaller girl, who looked around quickly, as though she was trying to escape some trap, but saw no way out. She agreed. Hermione did not seem to notice her reluctance. Dan and Emma exchanged another look. Hermione could be a bit _much_ when she was excited, but given time (and books), she would likely calm down. And if Elizabeth was truly uncomfortable in their home, she could always go back to the school with Professor McGonagall.

Elizabeth rode home with the Grangers, the four of them somewhat uncomfortably squashed into Dan’s car with two rather large trunks, several extra bags of books and owl-care products, and a small barn owl in a brass cage. It was not until the family arrived at their home that Emma and Dan began to suspect that something was seriously wrong with Elizabeth, or more precisely, her previous home life.

Elizabeth stood silently and awkwardly in the foyer until Emma instructed her daughter to show her to the guest room. Then she almost objected, only to be silenced when Dan asked with a smile where she ought to sleep, if not the spare bed. The girls had returned to find that Dan was already working on dinner, while Emma started skimming through the legal texts they had bought. Hermione joined her mother at once, starting in on _The Standard Book of Spells_ , but Elizabeth had asked Dan if there was anything he wanted her to do. He waved her away, telling her that she was a guest, and needn’t help if she didn’t want to. The girl had looked outright panicked at that, her eyes large and her mouth working silently.

Neither Dan nor Hermione noticed, Emma thought, her husband preoccupied with slicing tomatoes, and her daughter with her book. _What kind of child expects to be given chores in a stranger’s home?_ Emma wondered. She invited the girl to look through the magical theory book and see if she could find anything explaining why some people had magic and some did not. Elizabeth nodded quickly, and sat silently, taking the book and flipping through it for the required information. She looked relieved to have been assigned a task, Emma thought. Yes, something was definitely not right.

Over the next few weeks, Dan and Emma discussed their guest in quiet tones late at night, and worked hard to win her trust. Emma insisted that the key was consistency, and Dan followed her lead. They treated her exactly the same as they did Hermione. They asked the girls to do a certain amount of work around the house each day (as Hermione had done every summer for years), but otherwise allowed them to do as they pleased, including allowing Elizabeth to help with dinner (to Dan’s surprise, the girl was a very good cook. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought she’d had years of practice). They spent family time together in the evenings and on weekends. Emma, who had learned calligraphy in what she liked to refer to as her misspent youth, spent nearly two weeks patiently trying to teach the girls how to write with a feather quill before allowing Dan to buy them proper fountain pens. Dan discussed magical theory and science with the girls, and, perhaps most importantly, Emma had figured out how to make the Ministry allow them to do magic in their home, just like children from magical families.

Once upon a time, in the middle of her undergraduate degree, unfortunate circumstances led twenty-year-old Emma Holmes to transfer her credentials from an American university to the Royal College of London. As an encore, she married Dan Granger and successfully applied for dual citizenship. Compared to the three-year ordeal (referred to in the Granger household as a Kafkaesque nightmare) that was her trans-oceanic move, the Ministry of Magic had _nothing_ when it came to ridiculous forms and official hoops.

The first thing Emma had done on the Monday morning after their trip to Diagon Alley was send an owl to the Ministry of Magic, inquiring about an exception to the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, which Professor McGonagall had explained as the children had left the wand shop. By the end of the week, she had successfully petitioned the Ministry of Magic to allow underage magic in the Granger home, citing an ambiguously worded exception to a law passed in 1847, which allowed the girls to practice the easiest charms and transfigurations in their textbooks. (She had the overwhelming impression that Ministry of Magic officials were not accustomed to dealing with sensible, well-educated non-magicals, people who had actually researched the relevant laws, or people who were not cowed by bureaucratic nonsense. Most unfortunately for the Ministry, Emma was all three.)

By the end of the month, Emma had also had the house warded by a freelance security company against magical attack, successfully opened a Gringott’s account for the Granger family, and had begun inquiring about legislative representatives for muggle-born witches and wizards. Though she didn’t know it, certain Ministry officials had begun to dread the sight of the little barn owl carrying impeccably calligraphed letters from the suspiciously well-informed and dangerously competent Dr. Emma Granger. Certain other, more cynical officials had begun to take bets on how long it would take the infamous Granger woman to completely destabilize their government. Safe money was on ten years at the outside.

* * *

From Mary’s perspective, the remainder of August passed in a blur. It was the best summer she had ever had, and was entirely unlike living with the Dursleys, which was the highest compliment she could think of. The doctors Granger worked at their dental practice during the day, leaving a list of chores for Hermione and Mary to accomplish every morning. The chores never took too long, and unlike Privet Drive, the Granger house did not need to be kept spotless. Mary slept in an actual bedroom, in an actual bed, like an actual guest, and when she broke a house rule, the Grangers did not punish her, but instead explained the reasons for rule and why she should follow it.

For many days, Mary was terribly suspicious of the doctors Granger, because she felt they were being unusually kind to her, and all of the rules they gave her were _sensible_. Even the Professor was not so kind, being a rather severe sort of woman. She eventually decided that she would simply do whatever Hermione did, and hope for the best. She must have done well, on the whole, she thought, because she was never punished or made unwelcome. All the Grangers still called Mary ‘Elizabeth,’ because that was how she had first introduced herself, even though she said they didn’t have to. Every part of life with the Grangers was odd, but by the end of the month, Mary thought she rather liked being Elizabeth Potter, who lived in the Grangers’ spare bedroom and was as normal a girl as a muggleborn (or muggle-raised) witch could be.

After their daily chores were done, the girls read their textbooks, or watched documentaries on television, or played computer games. Hermione showed Mary the DOS commands and taught her how to make tiny programs with basic logic, which Mary thought was fascinating. Mary, in return, taught Hermione (who was a laughably bad chef) how to cook more than sandwiches.

One day, they listened to the radio so loud that the neighbor lady, Old Mrs. White, came over to tell them to turn it down, and then sat and talked to them for most of the afternoon. Mary told Hermione some of the stories she had made up to keep herself from dying of boredom in her cupboard and Hermione summarized her favorite fiction stories for Mary (after Mary promised that she would, actually, read them eventually, for real!).

They practiced basic spells (Hermione was better at reading the Latin incantations, but Mary sometimes got them to work first when Hermione told her how things were pronounced), and measuring out kitchen supplies as though they were potions ingredients, and sometimes went for long walks around the neighborhood if they got bored. Mary borrowed clothes from Hermione when they left the house, which were too big, but nowhere near as large as Dudley’s cast-offs.

The first weekend, the girls planted a flower-bed in the back garden, and Mary met a little snake who came to eat the bugs in the flowers. His name was the Scent of Air after the Storm, which Hermione said was called ozone. He thought it was interesting that humans had a name for that scent, and that it was very funny when Hermione tried to imitate Mary saying it in Parseltongue. Mary had laughed so hard that she had had to sit down. Hermione had stuck her tongue out at Mary, and tempted Ozone away from her with bits of chicken in revenge. The Drs. Granger seemed to think it was odd that their house-guest could apparently talk to snakes, but not any more odd than the existence of magic in general.

Hermione bombarded Mary with questions about the things she had seen in the magical world, for the one week she had lived at Hogwarts, and Mary had told her about house elves and talking portraits and flying on a broom; then the rules of Quidditch and Gobstones and Exploding Snap and how difficult it was to play chess with pieces that argued strategy with you; and then how Professor McGonagall had said everyone from old wizarding families was related to everyone else. She talked about Hagrid and Madam Hooch and described everything she remembered from the greenhouses and how the Castle looked reflected in the lake. She hadn’t realized that she had learned so much about the Wizarding world in such a short time until Hermione asked her about it.

They read the history books the doctors Granger had bought, and talked about Voldemort’s War. Mary was thankful to hear that Hermione agreed that it was unlikely that Mary had actually done anything to stop Voldemort, no matter what everyone else thought.

Mary told Hermione everything Professor McGonagall and Hagrid had told her about her family and the Marauders. Hermione told Mary all about her cousins and aunts and uncles. Mary refused to say anything about _her_ aunt and uncle and cousin, except that they existed, and were horrible and hated magic, no matter how many questions Hermione asked.

Mary wrote a letter to Remus Lupin, the Last Marauder, using the Grangers’ owl, Iris (who Mrs. Dr. Granger had named after the goddess of rainbows and gossip), and he had sent a short and formal reply. He said that most of his friendship with James was impossible to put into a letter, but offered to come visit Hogwarts over the winter hols so they could talk more in person. He also said that Lily’s best friend had been Marlene McKinnon, but he didn’t know if she had gotten married or survived the War. Mary added Marlene McKinnon to her journal so that she could try to find her once they got back to Hogwarts.

Hermione read _Hogwarts, a History_ , and they talked about school Houses again. Mary was still certain she belonged in Slytherin, but Hermione, who had been sure it was either Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, found herself less certain after reading about the founding qualities of Slytherin (excellence, ambition, drive, and cunning) and Hufflepuff (hard work, acceptance, friendship and equality). Eventually, after several days of circular arguments, Mary declared that she didn’t want to hear about it anymore, and that Hermione should be a Slytherin too, or else a Ravenclaw, since the book said that their Common Room was guarded by riddles instead of a secret password, so Mary would be able to visit her.

In the evenings, Mr. Dr. Granger would make dinner (he said that Hermione got her cooking skills from her mother) with Mary’s help, and Mrs. Dr. Granger and Hermione would do the dishes. Then they would all sit around the den and Mr. Dr. Granger would play Classical records while all four of them read about magical history or magical theory or law and politics, and occasionally said something like, “There were _seventeen_ Goblin Wars? Good lord!” or “I just don’t understand why Morgana brought the Dark back, if it’s so bad,” or “Pass the stickies, dear, I’ve found another law.”

The elder Grangers were taking it in turns to read chapters from a very dry and boring lawbook, which the shopkeeper at Flourish and Blotts had recommended for muggle parents of magical children. Their tally of laws that affected muggleborn children or children with one foot in the magical world and one in the muggle world was growing quite long. Mrs. Dr. Granger had meticulously marked them all with little yellow sticky notes, which had situations like “If child endangered at school” and “Celebrations of traditional holidays” written on them. As Mrs. Dr. Granger liked to say, ‘you have to know your rights, girls!’

Mrs. Dr. Granger also insisted that Hermione and Mary ought to learn to write with a quill, like all the other magical children, but after almost two weeks of disastrous attempts to master the new writing utensils, Mary convinced Mr. Dr. Granger to take them shopping for pens instead. She had meant to just grab a box of ballpoints, but Mr. Dr. Granger had taken them to a fancy stationary store, and found them matching sets of metal-nibbed fountain pens, which could be filled with wizarding ink, and at least didn’t bend or blot like actual feathers when they tried to write. He had also refused to take her money when she tried to repay him for it, and told her it was a belated birthday gift. Later that evening, Mrs. Dr. Granger cut Mary’s hair so that she had a fringe to hide her scar, and for the first time in her life, it didn’t grow back to normal overnight.

The Drs. Granger took to calling Mary ‘Beth.’ They said it suited her, as she was so quiet and reserved. Hermione took to calling her ‘Liz’ because really she wasn’t all that reserved, at least when they were alone, and a girl who talked to snakes should have a more interesting name than ‘Beth.’ Mary pointed out that that was silly, and Hermione insisted that she was allowed to be silly sometimes, and that Liz was a better name than Beth because it had a ‘z’ in it. Mary started calling Hermione ‘Mai,’ because she wouldn’t stop bemoaning the fact that there was no good nickname for ‘Hermione.’ Somehow, by the end of the summer, they had settled on Maia and Lizzie.

On the second weekend, Mr. Dr. Granger found a law stating that the exchange rate between muggle and magical precious metal prices had been fixed in the 1800s, and got very excited, talking about relative exchange rates of gold and silver and ounces and arbitrage. He took the girls to Diagon Alley and let them explore while he talked to the goblins for almost two hours. The girls got ice cream and then went back to the book store to look for more recent history or political books for Mrs. Dr. Granger. Mr. Dr. Granger learned that he was correct (and that the wizarding government was full of idiots, just like Parliament) – he could make a lot of money just by buying gold for galleons and selling it for pounds. Mrs. Dr. Granger made him promise not to do it, though, or at least not much, reminding him that just because something was not actually illegal didn’t mean it was a good idea. What would happen if the Government realized that he was importing gold from an entirely unknown source? She asked. Or that he had money appearing in his accounts from nowhere? They would think he had become a drug dealer or something. That rather quashed his excitement.

The Grangers had subscribed to the Daily Prophet, which was the Magical British newspaper out of London, and they liked to read through all the week’s issues on Sundays and point out all the oddities. The oddest thing of all, Mrs. Dr. Granger said, was not reading about a Ministry of Magic or the articles about magical accidents and catastrophes, but the fact that, for all it was a National Daily, the paper tended to sound more like a small town publication. She thought that the magical community must not actually be very large, though she could not find a census record in any of the books they had bought.

On Mary’s third Saturday in Kent, the Grangers received an owl from Professor McGonagall. Mary had received a short letter from the professor at least once a week requesting a return letter to confirm that she was fine and had everything she needed or wanted. This was the first for the Grangers, however. It contained two tickets for a “Hogwarts Express,” which left from King’s Cross, “Platform 9 ¾” at eleven o’clock on the first of September, as well as meticulous instructions for getting to the platform if they chose to arrive “by muggle means of transportation”, or for using their tickets as “portkeys” if they decided not to drive. The portkeys sounded like some sort of teleportation enchantment, and the letter said they would allow the elder Grangers to enter the platform if they were touching it at the appointed time (10:17am on one ticket, and 10:18am on the other) and one of the girls said _portus_. There was also a note to make sure to hold on to their luggage tightly.

After careful consideration, and re-reading the letter to confirm that the portkeys would work _from_ anywhere, the Grangers decided to drive to the station and then use the portkeys to hop across the barrier. This meant that they would have to leave quite early on the morning of the first, but they thought it was a small price to pay to see their daughter off (and also be able to get home afterward).

The last week with the Grangers passed even faster than the previous three, and Mary was slightly surprised to find she was sad to leave, when it came time to pack her things. She wondered idly if this is what it was like to have a real family, and for the first time found herself really regretting the fact that her parents had died. Before, she hadn’t had any idea of what it might have been like to have parents, and she hadn’t truly missed them. But she thought that if they had been anything like the Grangers, she really did miss them very much.

By the end of the month, Dan and Emma had learned a great deal about the world their daughter had no choice but to enter, and Hermione and Elizabeth appeared to be fast friends. The younger girl even seemed to trust her friend’s parents to a certain degree, though she still called them Mr. and Mrs. Dr. Granger, rather than Dan and Emma. The elder Grangers decided, on the last night of August, that if Elizabeth ever needed a home in the muggle world, she would be welcome in theirs. Though they did not say it, both of them had begun to think of the tiny, green-eyed girl as the second child they never had.


	7. Chapter 6: All Aboard

###  Sunday, 1 September 1991 (6:00 am)

#### Kent

Mrs. Dr. Granger woke the girls early on September first, and Mr. Dr. Granger still had to drive very fast on the A2 in order to make it to the station on time.

“Hermione! Elizabeth! Time to get up!” That, Mary thought, was easy for her to say – the elder Grangers got up at six for work every morning, while the girls usually slept until eight. She rolled over and thought that five more minutes sounded lovely.

Mr. Dr. Granger was making kippers, and the smell wafting into her bedroom was a better incentive to get up than Mrs. Dr. Granger’s shouting. She was considering it. Then, quite suddenly, Mary’s door flew open, and Hermione jumped on the bed. Mary screamed.

“Come on, Lizzie! Get up! We’re going to Hogwarts today!”

“I’m up, Maia! I’m _up!_ Stop _bouncing_ , Jesus Christ!”

“No, you’re not. Dad’s making breakfast,” the older girl wheedled.

“I’m up, really!” Mary laughed at Hermione, who had not been this excited since their first Diagon Alley trip. She followed Hermione to the kitchen, still in the wizarding blouse and bloomers she had taken to wearing as pajamas.

After breakfast, everyone had to take showers, and the girls spent a good half an hour debating whether to wear muggle clothes or robes for the train ride. They tentatively decided that muggle clothes were better, because they would have to park somewhere in muggle London. Then Hermione spent another fifteen minutes trying to find something in her closet that would actually _fit_ Mary, and _not_ look like some sort of god-awful hand-me-down outfit, a description which fit nearly every article of clothing Mary had ever worn. Mary rejected a pair of jeans because the bottoms would show under her school robes when she finally put them on, and eventually Hermione produced a khaki skirt with a draw-string and, from the very back of the closet, a black tank-top that would have been almost ridiculously small on her. It was really a wonder Mrs. Dr. Granger hadn’t given it to charity already.

They should have been ready to go by eight, but Mrs. Dr. Granger started listing off the things they needed – “Do you have your lunches? Wands? Cauldrons? Textbooks?” and so on, and then realized that Hermione had packed several of the history books that both of them had yet to read. They argued over who should get to read them first for nearly twenty minutes, before Mr. Dr. Granger (who was considered by all to be the last bastion of reason in the madness that was his house, aka, the tiebreaker vote) pointed out that Hermione would be too busy with classes and she would have access to the entire school library anyway, and made her unpack the history texts. This, of course, meant pulling both trunks out of the car (because they couldn’t tell which trunk was which and unpacked Mary’s first) and then putting them back after the contentious books were located and returned to the house.

Mary remembered at the last second that she had left her pen in her room, and as soon as everyone was piled into the car (Mary had to sit on the little seat between the Drs. Granger because one of the trunks was in the back seat with Hermione), Hermione realized that she had forgotten to pack her shampoo and had to go back for it. In the end, it was 8:35 by the time they left the house. Mary spent the first half of the drive worrying about the fact that she didn’t have any toiletries at all, except for her toothbrush (no one lived in the Granger household who didn’t have a toothbrush), and then decided that if it was really a problem, she would just have to ask the Professor about it, because she couldn’t do anything about it _now_. They had to stop for petrol in Maidstone, and then by the time they found parking at King’s Cross, they had barely enough time to get the trunks out of the car and lock it before the time appointed on the tickets arrived.

#### Platform 9 ¾

They each took a corner of the ticket, and the adults took the trunks firmly in their other hands. Hermione had the honor of saying _portus_ as her watch ticked over to 10:17, and then Mary felt an awful, sickening hooking sensation somewhere around her belly button. She couldn’t have let go of the ticket if she wanted to. The world disintegrated into whirling madness, the only things she could make out were the Grangers, also holding on to the ticket, their faces caught somewhere between sick and terrified, much as she suspected her own must be.

And then they were, suddenly, there – present, in a train station, bodies, minds, and trunks intact, as though they had not moved a muscle. The spell released them, and they staggered. Mary lost her balance completely, falling onto the trunk in Mrs. Dr. Granger’s hand and causing them both to lurch sideways dangerously. Hermione sat down hard on the ground, one hand to her mouth and the other to her stomach, obviously trying not to throw up. Mr. Dr. Granger tried to haul her to her feet as a station attendant called “10:17! 10:17 to the sidelines! Clear the landing pad! This way, folks! Twenty seconds before I summon you out!”

Mary and the Grangers limped and staggered away from their landing point, to a nearby row of benches, where similarly afflicted travelers sat, either trying to keep down their breakfasts or catch their breath.

Mary looked around as she recovered. The first thing that drew the eye was a great scarlet steam engine, already smoking. There were families milling around, most of them with a cat or an owl, and one or two children, but no trunks. More people were coming in through an arched iron gateway labeled Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, dragging their trunks on trollies and loading them onto the train. There were a few abandoned trollies sitting around, and teenage-looking station workers in little peaked caps alternated between bringing them over to the Portkey area and returning them back through the iron arch. A family of five appeared on the Portkey Landing Pad with a whoosh and a stumble, then dragged their trunks toward the Grangers. There was a newspaper vendor and little carts with snacks and drinks for sale, a stand from a shop called Scrivners’, which looked like it sold last-minute school supplies, and dozens of other tiny shoplets that Mary hadn’t the faintest hope of identifying.

The nearest people on the benches were a sandy-haired man and his waifish blonde wife, who was saying to her son, “Sure you’ve got everything, Ced?” The boy, already wearing his school robes and a yellow-striped tie grinned and said, “Well it’s too late now if I haven’t, mum.”

The Drs. Granger had been muttering quietly to each other and looking around as well, and when Hermione started commenting on things, they decided that everyone was recovered enough to go load their trunks onto the train. As they approached it, it let off a great whistle, and they saw that the station clock read half-past ten. They found an empty compartment about halfway down, and Mr. Dr. Granger pulled the trunks through the door with a great heave. He wrestled them into the overhead storage compartments, and then retreated to the platform. Mrs. Dr. Granger suggested they have a look around the little stalls, since they had so much time, and they made their way in that direction.

The older Grangers were drawing stares from the other families as the platform grew more crowded. It was not unusual for the children to wear muggle clothing (with school uniforms in various states of dress on top), but almost all the other adults were dressed in robes. Whispers of “muggles” and “did you see?” followed them across the station.

Mr. Dr. Granger laughed quietly at a little boy who was tugging on his mother’s robes and pointing at them. “Odd to be the odd ones out, eh love?” he asked his wife.

She smiled, apparently just as comfortable with the attention as her husband. “It is, a bit. It’s almost like when I went to Korea for that conference last year, and everyone wanted to get a picture because of my eyes, except the only thing that’s different between us and that family over there,” she nodded at a smartly dressed blonde couple and their son, “is the way we’re dressed, at least to see it.” Hermione obviously came by her outgoingness honestly, thought Mary.

They meandered past stalls of odds and ends, pausing to look at something called a Pocket Sneak-o-Scope, which whistled and blinked when someone untrustworthy was around (all of them were going off, even when the scruffy salesman at their table was the only person around) and then a set of Sleep Sneak Specs: glasses which made it appear that your eyes were open while you took a nap. After a few minutes, Mr. Dr. Granger asked them to look for a quiet corner so they could say their farewells in peace.

Mrs. Dr. Granger led the quartet over to the iron archway, which had become the least active place as most people mobbed the train to board. A few last-minute stragglers rushed through, a family of red-heads with four trunks and at least six people, and they formed a huddle nearby, saying their own farewells. Mary watched as the red-headed mother fussed over her children, standing a bit apart from the Grangers to let them have their family moment.

“Beth? Elizabeth? Earth to Elizabeth! Mary Elizabeth Potter, what _are_ you doing?” Mrs. Dr. Granger said loudly, finally getting Mary’s attention. “Come _over_ here and say a proper goodbye!”

Mary grinned and went to join the Grangers. “You girls have fun and learn loads, eh?” said Mr. Dr. Granger. “We expect a letter every week, and we’ll be sending Iris after you if we don’t get one!”

“We love you, Poppet,” Mrs. Dr. Granger added, giving her daughter a hug. “And Beth, it was a joy to have you. You’re welcome in our home any time, understand?”

“Thanks, Mrs. Dr. Granger,” said Mary, and was stunned when she was folded into a hug herself.

“For the love of all that is holy, Beth, my name is _Emma_. Call me _Emma_ ,” but she laughed. Mary had not called either of the Drs. Granger by their given names all summer.

Mr. Dr. Granger muttered something into his daughter’s hair and she giggled a bit, but tears filled her eyes as she pulled away. “I’m going to miss you, dad, mum.”

“We’ll miss you too, darling,” Mrs. Dr. Granger murmured, pulling her daughter into another hug.

Mr. Dr. Granger pulled Mary into a hug as well, and told her to owl them if she ever needed anything, and they’d see her over the holidays. Mary grinned. “Thanks, Mr. Dr. Granger.”

“It’s Dan, Beth,” he said with a matching grin.

“Right, then, we should go and let you girls get on the train.” Mrs. Dr. Granger wiped the tears from her own eyes, and then her daughter’s. “Chin up, Jeanie. We’ll write you before you’ve even settled in. All right?”

Hermione nodded.

“Bye, Emma,” said Mary, “Bye, Dan. We’ll send you a letter when we get there and let you know how the sorting goes!”

“Will wonders never cease! Emma! She said our names!” Mr. Dr. Granger liked to make a big deal out of little things. “Emma! Our little Elizabeth is growing up!”

“Oh, stop it, love,” Mrs. Dr. Granger said, but all of them were laughing.

“Bye, mum,” said Hermione, “Bye, dad.”

“Adieu, mes petites, not au revoir,” said Mrs. Dr. Granger, and Mr. Dr. Granger added, “We’ll see you both again, and I’m sure it will seem like no time at all.” And then the older Grangers held hands and walked under the iron arch, disappearing as they passed through it.

“They hate goodbyes,” Hermione said, still staring at the gateway.

 _They’re not the only ones_ , thought Mary, eyeing her friend. “Come on, Maia,” she said, pulling at the older girl’s hand. “We should get back to our compartment and see if anyone else has decided to join us!”

They started threading their way through the crowd, back to the compartment where they had left their trunks. It was much more crowded now, and the first few carriages were packed with students hanging out the windows to say goodbye and fighting over seats.

An old woman in a hideous hat was lecturing a small, round-faced boy about the responsibilities of owning a toad, the creature in question clutched in both his hands, while an older boy with dreadlocks showed off a tarantula to a small crowd of horrified and delighted students right outside their door.

Hermione led the way as they edged around the crowd, almost falling into the compartment as a red-headed boy turned around unexpectedly. “You!” the boy said, as he spotted Mary. He followed them into the compartment, which was still empty, though several other trunks had joined Hermione’s and Mary’s in the overhead racks. He was in turn followed by another boy who was undoubtedly his twin.

“Did we overhear,” the first twin began.

The other picked up where the first left off. “You being called,”

“Mary,”

“Elizabeth,”

“Potter,”

“Out on the platform?”

Mary looked back and forth between the boys for a moment, and then said, “Erm… No?”

Hermione burst out laughing at the identical look of open disbelief on the boys’ faces.

“Look,” Mary said, “Who’s asking?”

“Gred,”

“And Forge,”

“Weasley,”

“Pranksters extraordinaire,”

“At your service,” they said with a bow.

“Otherwise known as Fred,” said the one on the right, pointing at the other,

“And George,” who also pointed at his twin.

“How do people tell you apart?” Asked Hermione.

The boys laughed. “They don’t,” said Fred.

“Even poor mum,” added George.

Well, two could play at that game, Mary thought. “I’m Hermione Granger,” she said, holding out a hand.

“And I’m Elizabeth Evans,” Hermione played along.

The boys shook hands all around, then winked at Mary. “Elizabeth Evans,” said probably-Fred with a wink.

“Right,” said Mary.

“Not Mary Potter,” confirmed probably-George with a matching wink.

“Not at all,” said Hermione.

“Well, then, ladies,”

“Our sincerest apologies,”

“For the mistaken identity.”

“And may we just say?”

“We hope you’re in Gryffindor!” they finished together with a broad grin, and jumped out of the compartment just as the all-aboard-whistle sounded.

###  Sunday, 1 September 1991 (11:00 am)

#### Hogwarts Express

The boy who had been getting a lecture about toads came in a moment later, followed by two boys and a girl. All of them were first-years as well, and introduced themselves as Neville Longbottom, Terry Boot, Zacharias Smith, and Hannah Abbott. Hermione introduced herself as Hermione, and Mary introduced herself as Elizabeth. She was bound and determined to meet people as anyone but Mary Potter, savior of the wizarding world, while she had the chance.

“Are you two sisters?” Neville asked. Mary and Hermione looked at each other. They looked nothing alike.

“Yes,” said Mary firmly. “Hermione and Elizabeth Granger. How do you do?”

“You don’t look like sisters,” said Zacharias.

“Well we’re not _twins_ ,” Mary said. “Hermione’s almost twelve. I just turned eleven.”

“That’s not what he _meant_ , Lizzie.” Hermione had the irritated-older-sister tone just right. For a moment, Mary wondered if she wasn’t really annoyed that Mary had declared them sisters, but then she added, “Lizzie takes after Mum, and I look more like Dad.” Mary giggled. Hermione did really look a lot like her father, but she had her mum’s curly hair.

“You must be muggleborn,” said Hannah.

“Yes, we are. Why do you ask?” asked Hermione.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just I think we know all the other kids from wizarding families who are starting this year.”

“So that’s how Neville knew we were sisters? You didn’t know us and we already knew each other?” Hermione asked.

All the others nodded. “You do know that the Deputy Headmistress arranged a trip to Diagon Alley for all the muggleborns, right? We all know each other, too,” said Hermione.

The look on Neville’s face said he hadn’t known, but Zacharias laughed. “Not like we do. All our parents have been getting us together for play-dates since we were two,” he said, making a face.

Hannah threw a wadded up bit of spare parchment at him, and added, “Plus we’re all related. Zach’s my second cousin; Nev’s mum was a Prewett, and her mum was a Black and her grandmum a Rosier. Those three families have married _everyone_ , if you go back far enough. Nev’s granny Augusta, with the awful vulture hat, you may have seen her on the platform, she was a Bones: Terry’s mum’s least-favorite auntie. And Terry’s father’s sister is married to my mum’s sister’s husband’s sister.”

Hermione looked as though she was seriously trying to figure out the degrees of relationship between the four purebloods when Terry finally spoke up. “Don’t worry about it, Hermione. We all just call each other cousins.”

“And, yes,” added Zacharias, “We all had to study our families’ genealogies. And yes, it’s incredibly tedious. Let’s talk about something else. Who else was on your muggleborn shopping trip?”

Hermione and Zacharias managed to carry the conversation for another twenty minutes, Hermione telling Zacharias about Dean and Justin, and answering his polite questions about her first impressions of the wizarding world. Hannah made the occasional comment, too, while Terry, Neville, and Mary, who seemed to be the shyer half of the compartment, just nodded and made noncommittal noises on occasion.

A snack trolley came through around noon, and the wizarding students took great pleasure in recommending their own favorite candies to Hermione and Mary, who were largely unfamiliar with the offerings, having not gone into a candy shop on either of their trips to Diagon Alley. The purebloods bought enough to share, and Mary suddenly felt that not seeking out a sweetshop had been a great lost opportunity.

Terry had insisted on the Licorice Wands, which were just normal licorice, as far as Mary could tell, and she hated licorice. Cauldron Cakes, which Neville had recommended, were some kind of bland sponge cake filled with different custards and crèmes. Zacharias liked the Pumpkin Pasties, which _looked_ like a pasty, but was made of shortbread and filled with an orange-colored cream of some sort that did not taste like pumpkin at all, much like the “pumpkin juice” that was served with breakfast at Hogwarts. None of the children could identify exactly what it _did_ taste like, but it was vaguely sweet and quite pleasant. Hannah’s favorite, the Chocolate Frogs, were the most obviously magical, since the frog-shaped chocolates were spelled to try to hop away when they were opened. Zacharias had also bought a bag of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, which were no one’s favorite, but everyone’s second- or third-choice. He shared them out between the other sweets. Zacharias and Hannah were explaining the Famous Witches and Wizards collectable cards that came with the Chocolate Frogs when Neville, who had been complaining that he hated Chocolate Frogs because he couldn’t stand the idea of killing an _actual_ frog realized that his toad, Trevor, was missing (again).

“He must have gotten out when the trolley came by! What am I going to do, guys?” he moaned.

“Go ask a prefect to help you find him,” ordered Zacharias, and the others turned back to the Chocolate Frog Cards. Neville dithered for a moment, but eventually left the compartment.

“I should go with him and help him look,” Hermione said almost as soon as the door closed.

“No,” said Zacharias, “You shouldn’t. It’s good for Nev to do things on his own. He doesn’t get to very often.”

“His gran’s a controlling old hag,” Terry elaborated.

“Plus he’s already lost the damn toad at least a dozen times, and he just got him last week,” said Hannah. “I’ve told him to just let it go free, but he’s all…”

“ _Uncle Algie_ gave him to me,” the three of them said together. It was evidently something that Neville had said a lot.

“If you say so…” Hermione settled back in her seat and cast around for a new topic of conversation. She really just hadn’t wanted to talk about Chocolate Frog Cards anymore. “What did you think of that break-in at Gringotts?” It had been big news the week before.

“Your parents get the Prophet?” asked Zacharias, and then continued without waiting for a response, “Good for them. My father says it had to be some terribly powerful dark wizard to get past the goblins’ protections.”

“Nothing was actually taken, though,” said Hannah. “There might not have _been_ many protections.”

“Yeah,” said Mary, “That little poem on the doors only threatens you if you _take_ something, right?”

The others laughed. “I guess,” Zacharias admitted, “But you’d think things like traps and dragons wouldn’t care either way. And it was one of the high-security vaults. They’re supposed to suck you right in and keep you there if you’re not a Gringotts’ goblin.”

“So does anyone know who could have done it?” asked Hermione.

“Well, everyone’s scared because it might have been You Know Who,” said Terry, “Or, you know, his followers.”

“Noooo,” said Zacharias sarcastically, “It couldn’t have been the Death Eaters. All the ones who served the Dark Bastard willingly are in Azkaban! Malfoy and Avery and Nott and their lot were all under the Imperius Curse!”

Hannah and Terry laughed at this, while Hermione and Mary watched in bemusement.

“You Know Who is this Dark Lord who was defeated when we were all, what, one, maybe two?” explained Hannah, still giggling. Neither Hermione nor Mary informed her that they knew all about Voldemort. “His supporters called themselves Death Eaters, and after he disappeared, a lot of them claimed that he’d made them do all the terrible things that everyone _knew_ they had done, and because no one could prove that they _hadn’t_ been under the Imperius Curse, they got off with a load of fines and so on. Basically they just bribed their way out of prison, and are now considered upstanding members of society.” Hannah made a face.

“Their kids even come to Hogwarts,” Terry added.

“Really?” asked Mary. “Who are they?”

“This year,” Zacharias said, then stopped to think for a moment. “Malfoy, obviously, and those goons Crabbe and Goyle. Theodore Nott, and Millie Bulstrode, I think. Am I leaving anyone out, Hannah?”

“Pansy Parkinson.”

“Oh, right. I always think she’s younger than us. Just the six, then. And don’t worry, it’s pretty much guaranteed that they’ll all go to Slytherin.”

“Why?” Mary wanted to know what real people said about her chosen house, not just books.

“All the pureblood supremacists tend to end up there,” said Zacharias.

“It’s because they think they’re better than everyone else,” added Hannah.

“Aren’t you all purebloods?” asked Hermione.

“Yes, but we don’t think it makes us better than half-bloods or muggleborns,” Terry explained.

“So Slytherin is some sort of pureblood clubhouse?” That would be awful, Mary thought.

“No, they have their share of kids from mixed families, too,” Zacharias said. “Slytherin House prides itself on cunning and ambition, right? Well my mum says it’s like this: There’s not so much ambition _and_ cunning so much as ambition to _be_ cunning. And a lot of them confuse ambitions of excellence for actually being good at something.”

Hannah nodded. “The Snakes have a reputation for being manipulative brownnosers who value their own advancement over anything else, or, you know, arrogant arsewipes.”

“What about the other houses?” Hermione asked. “We only really know what they put in the school literature, and _Hogwarts a History_.”

Zacharias laughed. “They’re all equally bad. Gryffindor is arrogant and impulsive; Hufflepuffs are nosey pushovers; Ravenclaws are socially-impaired bookworms; and Slytherin is arrogant and manipulative. My mum says Slytherins and Gryffindors hate each other because they’re so similar, but Gryffindors are more… idealists, I guess. They say they value honor and chivalry and stuff like that, but that only applies to other Gryffindors. The Weasley twins are Gryffindors, and they’re the meanest pranksters at the school, according to my cousins.”

Hannah nodded. “That’s what my older brother says, too.”

“Really? We met them earlier. They just seemed kind of silly to me.”

“Wait and see if you’re not in Gryffindor,” Zacharias said ominously.

“Where do you want to go?” Mary asked.

“Probably Hufflepuff,” said Zacharias, “Because I don’t want to go to Slytherin. I’m going to do make something of myself, but I’ll do it through hard work, without dealing with all their prejudices.”

“Hufflepuff for me, too,” said Hannah. “Everyone says so. I mean, it sounds conceited to say it, but I really am a nice person, and I like to help my friends. So Hufflepuff, I think.”

“Ravenclaw,” said Terry without elaborating.

“I’ve decided on Ravenclaw, too,” Hermione announced. Mary smiled, because she had been dead-set on Gryffindor at breakfast. “What about you?” she asked, nudging Mary with her elbow. “Still think you want to be a Slytherin?”

“I don’t know if I _want_ to be a Slytherin with a bunch of Death Eaters’ kids. But I’m pretty sure I _am_ one, whether I want to be or not,” Mary said seriously. “We don’t actually sort ourselves, do we?”

“Nope!” said Zacharias cheerfully. “Mum says there are three tasks, and how you solve them determines what house you’re in. Dad says that you put on a hat and it tells you where you belong.”

“That’s daft,” Hannah objected. “ _My_ mum said the Headmaster uses Legilimency to figure out where you fit best.”

“My father said that the Heads of the Houses choose the most likely-looking students from a line up in turns,” volunteered Terry with a small smile, and then all five of them were laughing at the idea of the Heads of House taking turns to choose students like muggle children playing football (or wizard children making pick-up Quidditch teams).

“What about Neville?” Hannah asked suddenly.

“What _about_ Neville?” asked Zacharias.

“What house do you think he’ll be in?”

“Hufflepuff with us, probably. I don’t see him anywhere else, do you?”

“I don’t know,” Terry interrupted. “I think he could be a Gryffindor.”

“Really? Whiny little ‘I’ve lost my toad’ Neville, in Gryffindor? How do you figure?”

“Well, all I know is he’s braver than I am, living with Augusta Longbottom and that old bastard Algie and managing not to kill himself.”

Zacharias and Hannah were awkwardly silent after that for a long moment. Then they spoke at the same time:

“He’s been gone an awfully long time, now, hasn’t he?” And “Speaking of Nev, I’m going to see if I can find him.”

They shared an equally awkward look, and then both of them left the carriage. Terry rolled his eyes after them and then announced, “I’m going to see if I can find my friend Steve,” and left without another word.

“Bit of an odd duck, that Terry Boot,” Hermione observed.

###  Sunday, 1 September 1991 (4:00 pm)

#### Hogwarts Express

Mary and Hermione settled in, looking at the Chocolate Frog Cards some more and discussing the new information on the Houses. Sometime later, Mary announced, “I’m still hungry. Help me get my trunk down? I put the lunch your dad made in there when we were looking for those history books.”

“Damn it! I left mine in the living room when I took them back inside!” Hermione looked very irritated with herself, though if she had to forget something, Mary thought that a single lunch was the least thing it could have been.

“You can have some of mine, if we can get the damn trunk down without killing ourselves.”

They stood on opposite sides of the carriage, and Hermione started pulling the trunk off of the luggage rack. “It’s still got that floating enchantment on it. It’s not that heavy.”

“Did you not see your dad trying to get it up there?”

“It was probably only because he had to lift it. Grab the other end.” Mary did so, and was promptly dragged off the bench as the trunk fell to the floor of the carriage. She hit her head on something sharp, and by the time she could focus on what Hermione was saying, she was halfway through an explanation involving stabilizing enchantments and hover charms and cushioning spells. Mary didn’t care. She just wanted her damn sandwich. She righted herself and tried to open the trunk, only to find that it was, in fact, Hermione’s. “Bugger.”

“What’s that?” Hermione had clearly not been paying any attention to Mary’s predicament at all, wrapped up in her own world of physics and magic.

“It’s the wrong trunk, Maia. This one’s yours.”

“Oh, well, let’s get the other one, then.”

“You get the heavy end this time!”

“No, I think I’ve got it figured out. You just have to stay out of the way, is all.”

“Whatever.”

“No, watch.” She started to pull Mary’s trunk off the rack, but hesitated and then pushed it back. “One second, let me get my robes out first.”

“Why? You need to look like a witch for this?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lizzie. I’m just not sure if we’ll be able to get them back up, and there’s no room for a second one, so yours will have to sit on top of mine, and I think we’re probably supposed to be wearing robes when we get to school, so I should get my robes before we set your trunk on top of mine,” she said with no real pause for breath, rummaging in her trunk for her school robes. They were rather rumpled. Mary suspected that Hermione had packed them first, and then stacked books on top of them.

The older girl did up her buttons, and slipped her wand into the special wand-pocket, which the assistants at Madam Malkin’s had said was enchanted to prevent unfortunate accidents which might otherwise result in a broken wand. She looked like a proper witch when she was done.

“Best get your cloak out, too,” Mary said, quite resigned to the idea that she was never going to get that sandwich. “It will be dark when we get there.”

“Good point!” said Hermione, ducking back into the trunk and rummaging about some more. Eventually she did pull the cloak from the trunk and shoved everything else back in, shutting the lid with a decisive snap. “Right. Your turn.”

“I just need to stay out of the way, right?”

“Yes, just, sit in the corner for a moment or something.” She climbed back onto the bench and slid Mary’s trunk off the luggage rack. As soon as the back edge cleared the rack, gravity brought it down at the speed of falling until it hovered a bare inch above the seats and the other trunk. Hermione maneuvered it until it was floating directly over her own trunk, and said, “Ta da!”

“Fantastic.” Mary tried to tell herself that it was only slightly irritating that Hermione made it look so easy. She retrieved her sack lunch and opened it on top of the stacked trunks to find that Mr. Dr. Granger had packed not one but _two_ peanut butter sandwiches, and an apple, a granola bar, and a water bottle.

“Maia,” she said, utterly serious, “Your father is a saint. Do you want the apple or the granola bar?”

After they had finished the food, and Mary had thrown the apple core out the window, despite Hermione’s objections, the younger girl hunted through her own wardrobe (which had been packed properly, and _not_ crushed by books), put on her robes, and stowed her wand in its pocket. She was already wearing her boots, because despite knowing how odd it looked for an eleven-year-old to wear knee-high black leather boots with a skirt in the middle of summer, she had not thought to ask Mrs. Dr. Granger to take her shopping for new trainers or sandals.

Shortly after Mary located her cloak and tucked her precious fountain pen in with her parchment supplies, and Hermione firmly established that no, there was no way the two of them could replace the trunks in the luggage rack, a visitor knocked on their compartment door.

They had just settled in to read for a bit, so Hermione must have looked rather irritated when she opened the door. Mary heard a boy say, “Oh, er, sorry, I’ll just go.” And then Hermione saying, “Don’t be silly, come in.”

She moved aside and another one of the red-headed boys from the station followed her into the compartment.

“Hi,” he said awkwardly. “I’m Ron Weasley.”

“How do you do?” Hermione greeted him. Mary echoed it, and Hermione added, “You can sit, you know. We won’t bite. I’m Hermione Granger and this is Elizabeth Evans.” Oh, right. The Weasleys didn’t think they were sisters.

“Hang on, the twins told me about you!” Ron said loudly, then looked around and lowered his voice. “You’re Mary Potter, aren’t you?” he asked, looking directly at Mary.

She squirmed a bit, but decided to keep up the façade. “No. I’m just Elizabeth. Definitely not the savior of the wizarding world. I didn’t even know the wizarding world _existed_ until about a month ago, when I got my letter.” All of those things were true, she thought virtuously.

“Oh,” the boy sounded disappointed. Mary felt a bit bad, but not bad enough to tell him that she really was Mary Potter, too. “They must have been having me on again. I can’t believe I still fall for things like that.”

“They seemed a bit…much,” Hermione said sympathetically, then changed the subject with her characteristic lack of tact. “Did you know you’ve got dirt on your nose?”

“Hermione!”

“What? You think it would be kinder not to tell him and let him walk around with dirt on his nose?”

Ron flushed, and rubbed at his nose, but the dark smudge stayed in place.

“Maybe it’s ink,” Hermione revised with a shrug.

“Or maybe the twins got you,” suggested Mary. “They introduced themselves as pranksters.”

Ron rolled his eyes. “Maybe.” His change of subject was a bit smoother than Hermione’s had been. “So you’re muggleborn, Elizabeth? What about you, Hermione?”

“Oh, yes. My parents are very excited, but I gather most muggle families don’t take the news of the wizarding world, you know, existing… well. Professor McGonagall came and told me all about it, and then we had a trip to Diagon Alley where I met Lizzie, here, and she came and stayed with me for the rest of the summer because her family didn’t want her to be a witch.” Elizabeth just nodded. Hermione really was good at this cover-story thing. And she talked so much whenever she was meeting new people that it didn’t seem like she was babbling just because she was lying, which was good. She just kept _going_ , Mary marveled. “And of course we’re ever so excited as well, and terribly pleased, of course. We’ve been practicing the spells from the books, and I think we ought to manage alright. What about you? You’re _not_ muggleborn, are you? We were sitting with Neville Longbottom, and Zacharias Smith and Hannah Abbott, and Terry Boot, but they’ve all gone to visit other friends, or, well, Neville was looking for his toad, and never came back, and then Zacharias and Hannah went to find him, and they never came back either, so I _guess_ they found other people. But anyway, do you know them? They said all their families knew each other.”

Hermione paused expectantly, and Ron looked a bit stunned. “Erm, no. Not as such. Just met that Neville chap, maybe a couple hours ago now. My family are purebloods, but we live out in Ottery St. Catchpole, and we mostly keep to ourselves.” He appeared to think about this statement for a moment, then added, “And the Diggorys, who live nearby, and the Lovegoods, a bit. Prewetts, of course, at family reunions, but mum had a falling out with them when I was little, so I don’t really know my cousins as well as I should. There aren’t any in our year. And most of dad’s family died in the war. Erm, do you know about that?”

“Of course we do. We’ve read Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, Modern Magical History, Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century… What others, Lizzie?”

“Wizarding Wars of the Twentieth Century, but that was more about Grindelwald, I guess. Your mum kept all the others,” Mary said.

Hermione frowned at this. “Anyway, my parents thought it was madness that there had been whole wars they’d never heard of, so we got a bit of background reading. Have you read through the school texts, yet? I think I’ve nearly got them off by heart. Everything’s just so interesting and different!”

“Erm, no… but then, I suppose it’s all normal to me. I’d much rather hear about things in the muggle world. My dad’s a bit of a fanatic. Collects plugs, and so on. But we don’t go into muggle towns very often because there’s so many of us. Too obvious, you know.”

“He collects _plugs_? Electric plugs? What on earth for? How many of you are there?”

“Oh,” Ron did not look like he wanted to talk about his father’s collection _or_ his family, but he must have considered that his family were the lesser of two evils, because he continued: “I’m sixth of seven. Mum and dad kept going until they got a girl.”

“Are they all at Hogwarts?” Hermione asked.

“Bill and Charlie have already graduated. Percy’s a fifth-year and a prefect. The twins are third-year, and I’ll be a first-year, obviously.” Mary didn’t think it was that obvious. Ron was certainly tall enough to be a second-year, at least. “Ginny’s my little sister, and she won’t be starting until next year.”

“It must be odd, growing up with all those brothers,” Hermione said. “I’m an only child, and so is Lizzie.” Mary nodded. It was true enough. Dudley didn’t really count as a brother. “I suppose they played sports with you, and taught you loads growing up, and so on?”

Ron laughed. “No, not so much. I’m the youngest boy, so I get all their hand-me-downs, and they pick on me when they’re bored,” he corrected her. “We did play Quidditch, but they always made me Keeper.”

Mary perked up at this. She wanted to know more about the broomstick-riding sport.

“Isn’t that the sport you were telling me about, Lizzie? On brooms, with four balls?”

“Yes, it is. It sounds like fun, but I’ve never seen it played. Tell us about it!” She demanded of Ron, and he was more than happy to fill half an hour telling them about his favorite team, the Chudley Cannons, and particularly tricky and impressive moves, and then, at Hermione’s insistence, about something called Quodpot, which was like Quidditch, but without the Snitch.

Hermione thought Quodpot sounded like a much more reasonable game, but Ron insisted it was terribly boring – where was the fun when you knew exactly when the game would end? Hermione conceded that the uncertainty made it interesting, but insisted that it didn’t make any sense at all for catching the Snitch to be worth fifteen times as much as a normal goal, unless you regularly had a fifteen goal margin between teams, which Ron admitted wasn’t something that happened more than once a game. They had a furious argument which ended when Morgana Yaxley poked her head into the compartment.

“It doesn’t make _any sense_! All the rules of game design say –“

“Bullocks to your ‘rules of game design!’ You _need_ the Snitch! It’s not _Quidditch_ without the Snitch!”

“I don’t care about the damned Snitch! I’m just _saying_ , it oughtn’t be worth so many points!”

Mary was watching, fascinated. Ron and Hermione were completely absorbed in their argument, and neither noticed when the compartment door slid open. Morgana Yaxley arranged herself to be leaning on one side of the opening, not quite in or out of the room, and cleared her throat. Ron and Hermione stared, apparently shocked by the intrusion. Mary waved at her.

“Elizabeth! I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Hi!” Mary grinned, and introduced the older girl to her companions. “Morgana Yaxley, this is Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Maia, this is Morgana Yaxley, who I told you I met that day at Gringotts’.”

“How do you do?” said Hermione automatically.

“Quite well,” Morgana replied, “And yourself?”

“Erm, what?”

“Nevermind. Hullo, little Weasley.”

“Yaxley,” Ron said coldly.

“Do come in and sit,” Hermione invited.

“If she sits, I’m leaving,” Ron said quietly.

“Thanks. Hermione, was it?” the younger girl nodded. “Pleased to meet you.” Morgana looked back and forth between Ron and Hermione as she sat down. Ron stiffened. “I just thought I’d come tell you that there’s a name for people who think that the Snitch ought only to be used to end the game, and not worth any points at all: Quiddellers. There are pickup Quiddell matches every other Sunday, but the House teams still play Quidditch. And also we could hear you three compartments away. It’s not like these walls are stone, you know.” Both Ron and Hermione blushed. They hadn’t known that others had been listening in.

“Sorry, Morgana. And please tell your compartment we’re sorry as well,” Hermione offered.

“Eh, don’t worry about it. If anyone really minded, they’d have told you to shut up earlier.”

“So you’re just going to come in and tell us off, and then sit, like your family didn’t murder my uncles?” Ron said stiffly. The atmosphere in the compartment seemed to drop about twenty degrees.

“What?” Mary and Hermione asked together in complete shock.

“Careful, Weasley. It doesn’t do to go making accusations like that when you’re not even at school yet.”

“It’s true!”

“My father was cleared, and one of my uncles is in Azkaban. The Dark Lord is _gone_ , and what happened in the War, happened in the War. We’ve moved on. You should too.”

Ron stood with a huff. “It’s not right! Filthy Slytherin!” He stomped out of the compartment, slamming the door so hard it bounced halfway open again. The girls left it.

“What was all _that_ about?” Hermione asked.

Morgana sighed. “I suppose you’ll have to hear it eventually. You’re muggleborn, right? Do you know about the Dark Lord, and the War?”

The girls nodded.

“The Dark Lord had these followers, right?”

“Death Eaters,” said Mary.

“Yes. My father and his brothers were Death Eaters. They were involved in the murder of the Prewett twins, among other horrible things. Gideon and Fabian Prewett, who were Molly Weasley’s younger brothers. One of my uncles died in the fight, and the other went to Azkaban, because he was a willing Death Eater. But my dad was Imperiused, so he had to do it. All those terrible things. He never talks about the War…”

The compartment was silent for a long moment before Morgana continued. Mary couldn’t think of anything to say. It hadn’t been _their_ war. “Most people don’t, you know. Talk about the War. Even though people like my father were _forced_ to fight for the wrong side, that doesn’t change the fact that there are veterans from both sides walking around Diagon Alley right now. We’re a small society. There would be no living with each other if we couldn’t let the past stay in the past.” Hermione nodded.

Mary was just relieved that maybe she wouldn’t be lynched in Slytherin for being the Girl Who Lived. She hoped the other Death Eaters’ Children were so reasonable.

Morgana was still talking. “So most people ignore it and pretend that the War didn’t really happen, to a certain extent. Then you get some people like Molly Prewett, sorry, Weasley, who can’t let things go and still hold children responsible for their parents’ mistakes.” She made a face.

“Do all of the Weasleys hate you?” Mary asked.

“No, I get on alright with the Twins,” Morgana grinned. “They’re in my year. I’d like them a lot more if they’d stop pranking my house, but I can appreciate the skill it takes to get away with it as often as they do.”

“Morgana, my dove, is that you?” One of the aforementioned twins poked his head through the half-opened door.

“I told you my ears were burning, Fred,” they heard (presumably) George say from outside.

“Come off it, you two just heard your names and thought you’d burst in,” said another boy, pulling the door all the way open. He poked his head around, and they saw that it was the boy with the tarantula from the platform. “Hey, Morgan.”

“Hey, Lee.”

The boys apparently took this for an invitation, as they all piled into the compartment and sat down.

“Wotcher, Hermione,” said one of the twins.

“Not-Mary,” said the other, nodding in greeting.

“I’m Lee Jordan,” the boy with dreadlocks introduced himself.

“Hermione Granger”

“Elizabeth Evans”

“You mean,”

“You’re still not,”

“Mary Potter?”

“Drat!”

Mary started to ask the twins why they had told Ron she was Mary Potter, but Morgana spoke first: “I knew it!”

“What?” Mary didn’t think there was any way Morgana could have known.

“Okay, I didn’t know you were Mary Potter, but I knew your name wasn’t Elizabeth. Are you really?”

Mary was getting used to the lie now. “No, of course not. Elizabeth Evans, I just told you.”

“Riiiight,” drawled one of the twins.

The other flicked his wand and said “ _Ventus_.”

A tiny gust of wind blew Mary’s fringe aside. “ _Damn_ it.” She crossed her arms and pouted. “Yes, fine, I’m Mary Potter.”

The third years laughed, but Hermione patted her on the arm. “You knew it couldn’t last.”

“I _know_ , but I don’t _want_ to be Mary Potter, Girl Who Lived! I was raised by muggles! I don’t care about any of it! Please don’t tell anyone,” she asked the third-years. “Anyone else,” she amended, glaring at the twins.

All the third-years looked a bit stunned at the revelation that their savior had been raised by muggles, or maybe because she didn’t want to be the Girl Who Lived. Lee was the first to recover, and he smoothly changed the subject.

“Well, I won’t, but McGonagall will. She reads off all the names at the sorting. Even Sadie Rosier couldn’t convince her not to, and her full name’s _Sadachbia_.” He grinned.

“It’s true,” confirmed Morgana. “You’re doomed.”

Mary groaned.

“Come on,” Hermione said, “Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

“You’re just famous, is all,” said a Weasley.

“And you’ll have to put up with people asking stupid questions,” said the other.

“Like if you remember what MoldyShorts looks like!”

“But seriously, do you?” Whichever twin that was managed to maintain his earnest expression until the rest of the compartment had started laughing, and then joined them.

“No, I don’t,” Mary informed him over the laughter.

“Did you guys chase Ron away?” the same twin asked.

“We only sent him your way because he looked _so_ bored,”

“Trapped with the Patil twins and the Brown girl.”

“Morgana did,” Hermione explained, “Or rather, he learned her name and then stormed off.”

“You two ought to have a talk with him about maintaining the Truce,” Morgana added.

The twins gave identical eye rolls, and nodded.

“What’s the Truce?” Hermione asked.

“It’s how the purebloods from families that were on different sides in the last War try not to bring it up so the rest of us can live with them,” Explained Lee. “It doesn’t apply to muggleborns like us, since we don’t have any history there.”

“Oh, good,” said Mary, relieved that she wouldn’t have to worry about it.

The older students laughed, and Morgana reminded her, “ _You_ have probably more history than anyone else, even if you were raised by muggles.”

“Yeah,” Mary countered, “But as long as everyone _ignores_ it, that’s fine!”

Morgana and Hermione shared a doubtful expression, but they didn’t say anything, and the conversation turned to the elective classes that the third-years would be starting on Monday.

###  Sunday, 1 September 1991 (6:00 pm)

#### Hogwarts Express

Morgana was debating the merits of Muggle Studies with Fred and George (much to the amusement of the other three occupants of the compartment) when the door slid open once again. Three boys stood there, the one in front thin and blond, while the two behind him were more heavyset and looked like twelve-year-old bodyguards. The blond boy entered the compartment, though with the trunks still stacked in the middle of the floor, there wasn’t much room to stand. His companions made an attempt at looming in the corridor, but the train lurched, and then an older student told them to budge aside, which rather ruined the effect that Mary thought they were going for.

“I heard down the front of the train that Mary Potter’s in this compartment. Is that you?” he asked, looking at Mary.

At this point, she felt there was hardly any reason to deny it. They would be to school soon, anyway, and then, apparently, the Professor would ruin any attempt at hiding it. “Yes. Who are you lot?”

“Those two are Crabbe and Goyle,” he said, waving a careless hand back toward the boys in the doorway, “And my name’s Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.” He appeared to be trying to look superior, looking down his nose at them all. He was better at it than Aunt Petunia, but not by much.

Hermione sniggered at this, as did Lee, but Lee was out of sight, since Draco was looking at Mary.

“Think my name’s funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. You’re obviously just some mudblood.”

There was a chorus of outrage from the opposite side of the compartment, as the Gryffindor boys objected to the name-calling. Hermione could handle it, though, thought Mary. It wasn’t as though she’d been called something truly _rude_.

“ _I_ am Hermione Granger, first of her name,” she said haughtily (Mary rather thought she pulled it off better than Draco had), using an old naming convention they had seen in one of the legal books. “And _you_ are a poncy albino _twat_ whose Death Eater father rather unsuitably named him _the Dragon_ and who introduces himself like a fictional muggle espionage agent from the nineteen-sixties,” she informed him with a pleasant smile, then added in an utter parody of politeness: “How do you do?”

The Gryffindors roared with laughter and Morgana smirked openly at the boy. Mary managed to only smile a little bit, but the boy hardly noticed, since he was spluttering, incoherent with rage. Mary made out “my father” and “her _place_ ” several times. She decided she didn’t like him. He reminded her of Dudley.

While they waited for the boy to say something else or leave, Morgana muttered something to Hermione that Mary couldn’t hear, but it must have been complimentary, because Hermione beamed.

Malfoy managed to recover his ability to speak, and resumed talking at Mary. “You’ll soon find out that some wizards are much better than others, Potter. You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.”

Mary hid a mischievous grin. “So muggleborns are the wrong sort of wizards?” she asked innocently.

“Exactly.”

“What about Weasleys?”

“Blood traitors with more children than money. Definitely the wrong sort.” Malfoy seemed to be getting in to this.

One of the twins whined across the carriage, “Mor _gan_ a, he called us blood traitors!”

“You are blood traitors,” she said, as though this was patently obvious.

“But he said it in a _mean_ way!” the other twin whined. Mary thought they might have been imitating Draco.

“What do you want me to do about it?” Morgana asked.

“Tell him off!”

“Obviously,” muttered Lee, who seemed a bit put out that he hadn’t gotten a chance to join Hermione in defending muggleborns.

“Why should I?”

“We’re going to talk to Ron, aren’t we?”

 “Fine,” Morgana said, and stood up, folding her arms on the stacked trunks. “But you owe me.”

“He’s obviously going to be a Slytherin,”

“Someone would have to tell him anyway if he keeps this up.”

“But it wouldn’t be me. He’s no blood of mine.”

The twins sighed theatrically. “Fine.”

“One favor.”

“A small one.”

“One we want to do.”

“Because we know you’ll enjoy this.”

“Yeah, I will,” she grinned, “But you get nothing for nothing. Malfoy!” she snapped suddenly, turning to the boy, who looked furious over being ignored, as everyone had been watching the twins and Morgana negotiate.

“You know the terms of the Truce under which we all attend Hogwarts! What in the nine hells do you think you’re doing, making a reputation for yourself as being outside of it before you even get there? Do you _want_ to be a target for every disgruntled Light-side kid in the school? Dark Powers, I hope you don’t get sorted into Slytherin, if you’re that stupidly determined to bring embarrassment down on yourself.”

She paused to draw breath, and Malfoy said, “I’ll write my father—“

Morgana cut him off. “Yes, Draco, darling. Do write to dear Lucius. Tell him that Miss Morgana Yaxley had the nerve to you in your place. I’ll write to _my_ father as well, and ask him to ask _your_ father why he has been so _remiss_ in informing his only son of the political _realities_ of entering Hogwarts.” The boy paled. Mary didn’t know if it was because he hadn’t known who Morgana was, or if he had been disobeying his father by making a scene.

“Or better, I’ll write to _your_ _mother_ and tell her that her son is endangering himself with his carelessness before classes even start!” Mary hadn’t thought it was possible for Malfoy to get any whiter, but he managed it.

“It appears you have forgotten, so let me remind you,” the older girl continued, her voice deadly serious. “This is the real world. You’re _not_ at home in your safe little Manor. There are wizards out here who would hex you without thinking about it for your casual _rudeness_ , and _kill_ you for the sin of being Lucius Malfoy’s precious son. _Some_ of them have children at Hogwarts. Some of _them_ are in this compartment.” Fred and George twiddled their fingers in a mockery of a wave. “You throw language like ‘mudblood’ and ‘blood traitor’ around the halls at school, you mark yourself out as an _acceptable target_ , and all your father’s money and influence will do nothing to protect you.

“Furthermore,” she added, now disdainfully, “No Slytherin is going to stick their neck out for yours if you prove to us all that you’re a hopeless idiot or a crybaby, spouting off about writing home to your father to complain about every little thing.”

“I was told—” Malfoy tried to interrupt again, but Morgana didn’t let him.

“I don’t _care_ , Malfoy. You came in here all _obvious_ about wanting to get to the Girl Who Lived and make an ally out of her, and then proceeded to step on toes right and left, ignoring the proprieties and insulting her companions. You are the sole heir of a Noble House! You know better than that, and you ought to act like it! Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Apparently Malfoy did not, as he let the silence stretch between them rather than apologize or something, even though it was clear that he had been in the wrong.

“So,” Mary said conversationally, “Muggleborns and Weasleys are the wrong sort of wizards. What about Yaxleys?” It was patently obvious now that Mary had been leading Draco on from the start.

“I suppose Yaxleys are acceptable,” Malfoy said stiffly, ignoring the titters of the other students.

“Then I believe I will rely on Miss Yaxley to advise me on my choice of friends. Her judgement seems to be a bit more… _informed_ than yours.” She thought she had managed the superior attitude a bit better than Malfoy had. In any case, it was enough to send him storming from the compartment in a huff without even saying goodbye.

After Malfoy had gone, the Weasleys had stood and bowed to Morgana, proclaiming her a queen among witches and a future Mistress of the Howler, whatever that meant.

The older students chatted for a while about their friends and mutual acquaintances in the third year (Mary and Hermione listened attentively), but soon an announcement echoed through the train: “We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes’ time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.”

Mary’s stomach lurched with nerves, and even Hermione, with her endless enthusiasm, was looking a bit pale under her bushy hair. They double-checked that nothing had fallen out of their trunks, and the older students reassured them that they had nothing to worry about, though none of them would say exactly what was supposed to happen next. Fred and George joked about having to fight a dragon – no, a troll! And then Morgana said it was an adaptation of some muggle test, which made Hermione very nervous. Mary rather thought that was another lie, like a hat telling you where you belong, and the Heads of House choosing students like a sport team. Apparently everyone who had already been sorted got to make up a story about it for future first-years.

“You can’t _fail_ at sorting,” Lee announced, “If nothing else, you’ll just go to Hufflepuff. And that’s really all you need to know.”

#### Hogsmeade Station

The train slowed down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out onto a tiny, dark platform. Mary shivered in the cold night air. She could see why Madam Malkin’s assistant had recommended long skirts for winter. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Mary heard a familiar voice: “Firs’ years! Firs’ years over here! All right there, Mary?”

Hagrid’s big, bearded face beamed over the sea of students.

“C’mon, follow me – any more firs’ years? Mind yer step, now! Firs’ years, follow me!”

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Mary thought there must have been thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Neville, who never had returned to their compartment, sniffled once or twice. She wondered if he had ever found his toad.

“Ye’ all get yer firs’ sight o’ Hogwarts in a sec,” Hagrid called over his shoulder, “Jus’ round this bend here.”

There was a loud “Oooooh!”

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers. Mary thought this must be the back side of the school, because it certainly wasn’t the same lake she had flown over with the professor.

“No more’n four to a boat!” Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Mary and Hermione were joined in their boat by Neville and then Ron. “Everyone in?” shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. “Right then – FORWARD!”

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

“Heads down!” yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

“Oy, you there! Is this your toad?” said Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.

“Trevor!” cried Neville, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid’s lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass, right in the shadow of the castle.

They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, dark, wooden door.

“Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?”

Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times.


	8. Chapter 7: It Really Is A Hat

###  Sunday, 1 September 1991 (8:00 pm)

#### Hogwarts

The door swung open at once. The professor was there, standing tall against the lights of the hall behind her. Mary could just make out a stern expression on her face. She waved, not really expecting a wave in return. The professor’s last letter had reminded her that when they were at school, Mary had to be treated just the same as everyone else. But she smiled a little, anyway.

“The firs’ years, Professor McGonagall,” said Hagrid.

“Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here.”

She pulled the door wide. The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of the Grangers’ house in it, or maybe even the Dursleys’. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts’, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors. Mary marveled. She wished the professor had brought her in this way, the first time.

They followed Professor McGonagall across the flagstone floor. Mary could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right – the rest of the school must already be here – but the professor showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” said Professor McGonagall. “The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room.

“The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history, and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rulebreaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.

“The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting.”

Her eyes lingered for a moment on Neville’s cloak, which was fastened under his left ear, and on Ron’s still-smudged nose. Mary nervously re-tied her ponytail.

“I shall return when we are ready for you,” said Professor McGonagall. “Please wait quietly.”

She left the chamber, and the students immediately started talking about what exactly was to come, as though they had not already spent a good deal of the train ride discussing that very subject.

Then something happened that made her jump about a foot in the air – several people behind her screamed.

“What the --?”

Mary gasped. So did the people around her. About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was saying: “Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance –“

“My dear Friar, haven’t we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he’s not really even a ghost – I say, what are you all doing here?”

A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years.

Nobody answered.

“New students!” said the fat Friar, smiling around at them. “About to be Sorted, I suppose?”

A few people nodded mutely.

“Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!” said the Friar. “My old house, you know.”

“Move along now,” said a sharp voice. “The Sorting Ceremony’s about to start.”

Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.

“Now, form a line,” the professor said, “And follow me.”

Feeling oddly as though her legs had turned to lead, Mary got into line following Hermione, with Neville behind her, and they walked out of the chamber, back across the entrance hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

Mary had already known that Hogwarts was a strange and splendid place, but the little she had seen of the castle – the red and silver room, the professor’s quarters, the professor’s office, and a few corridors and passageways leading to side-entrances to the Castle – hardly compared to the magnificence that was the Great Hall decked out for the start of term feast.

Thousands and thousands of candles floated in midair over four long tables, which were filled with students. Their places were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall let the first years up here, so that they came to a halt facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Mary looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling, dotted with stars. _Hogwarts, a History_ had said that it was bewitched to look like the sky outside. It was hard to believe that there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn’t simply open on to the heavens. She heard Hermione whisper, “It’s even better than I thought it would be,” and nodded in response.

Mary quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard’s hat. The hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Aunt Petunia wouldn’t have let it in the house. Even Mrs. Dr. Granger would have raised an eyebrow at it.

Everyone in the hall was staring at the hat. It couldn’t be…

There was a moment of complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth – and the hat began to sing:

“Oh, you may not think I’m pretty,  
But don’t judge on what you see,  
I’ll eat myself if you can find  
A smarter hat than me.

You can keep your bowlers black,  
Your top hats sleek and tall,  
For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat,  
And I can cap them all.”

It was.  A _Sorting Hat_.

“There’s nothing hidden in your head  
The Sorting Hat can’t see,  
So try me on and I will tell you  
Where you ought to be.”

They were to be sorted by a _hat_ , which would tell them where they belonged. Mary’s mouth was hanging open. She had been _sure_ that one was made up. It might be a sentient, mind-reading, singing hat, but it was still a _hat_. This was ridiculous. And yet it fit, somehow, with everything else she had seen of the wizarding world, from Diagon Alley to the Daily Prophet. It was all some kind of shared, glorious madness. She grinned. A hat.

“You might belong in Gryffindor,  
Where dwell the brave at heart.  
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry,  
Set Gryffindors apart.

You might belong in Hufflepuff,  
Where they are just and loyal.  
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true,  
And unafraid of toil.

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,  
If you’ve a ready mind,  
Where those of wit and learning,  
Will always find their kind.

Or perhaps in Slytherin,  
You’ll make your real friends.  
Those cunning folk use any means  
To achieve their ends.”

Mary frowned. There was something off about the Slytherin stanza. ‘You’ll make your real friends’ just didn’t sound right.

“So put me on! Don’t be afraid!  
And don’t get in a flap!  
You’re in good hands (though I have none)  
For I’m a Thinking Cap!”

The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables, and then became quite still again.

“That doesn’t sound so bad, then!” Hermione said to Mary’s right. She was smiling brightly. She was probably pleased that she didn’t have to decide for herself where she belonged after all. Mary personally could have done with a bit more privacy for the thing.

Professor McGonagall then stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

“When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted,” she said.

“Abbott, Hannah!”

The girl from the train stumbled out of line, face pink and her blonde pigtails a bit disheveled, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. There was a moment’s pause.

“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat, just as Hannah had said she expected.

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. Mary saw the ghost of the fat friar waving merrily at her.

“Bones, Susan!”

“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat again, and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.

“Boot, Terry!”

“RAVENCLAW!”

The table second from the left clapped this time. Several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them.

Mandy Brocklehurst went to Ravenclaw, too, but Lavender Brown became the first new Gryffindor, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers. Mary spotted the Weasley twins catcalling.

Millicent Bulstrode then became a Slytherin, as Zacharias and Hannah had predicted. The Slytherin table was more reserved in their cheering than any of the others.

Justin Finch-Fletchley became a Hufflepuff, which rather surprised Mary. She didn’t know what house she thought he _should_ have gone to, but he didn’t really seem like the hardworking sort when they went to Diagon Alley.

Sometimes, Mary noticed, the hat shouted out the house at once, but at others it took a little while to decide. Seamus Finnigan sat for almost a full minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.

Then it was Hermione’s turn. She almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly onto her head.

“RAVENCLAW!” shouted the hat after several very long minutes. Mary grinned, and clapped quietly for her friend, who was welcomed to the Ravenclaw table with applause and handshakes. One older boy even kissed her hand.

When Neville was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. The hat took a long time to decide, and then when it finally shouted “GRYFFINDOR,” he ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to the next girl. Mary supposed that meant that Terry had known his friend better than Zacharias or Hannah, then.

Draco Malfoy swaggered forward when his name was called. The hat had barely touched his head when it screamed “SLYTHERIN,” again, as expected. He went to join his goons, Crabbe and Goyle, looking pleased with himself.

There weren’t many people left now. Lilian Moon, Theodore Nott, and Pansy Parkinson all went to Slytherin, and then one of the Patil twins to Ravenclaw and the other to Gryffindor. Sally-Anne Perks went to Hufflepuff, and then it was Mary’s turn.

Professor McGonagall called her name the same as all the others: “Potter, Mary!”

Mary stepped forward, and whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall. “Potter, did she say?” and “The Mary Potter?” She hurried to the stool, wanting to get it over with.

The last thing Mary saw before the hat dropped over her eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at her. Next second she was looking at the black inside of the hat. She waited.

“Hmm,” said a small voice in her ear. “Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, and no lack of nerve, if you’ve need of it, I see. But it’s a quiet bravery – you’d rather not the front lines, eh? No stranger to hard work, either. There’s intelligence, yes, but no love of the knowledge itself. Not Ravenclaw, I think. There’s a certain ruthlessness about you, but you could grow out of that… and a nice thirst to prove yourself, too… so where shall I put you?”

Mary gripped the edges of the stool, becoming more nervous as she waited. She had thought it should be an easy choice. She clearly belonged in Slytherin.

“Slytherin, eh?” said the small voice. “Are you sure? You have the ambition, of course, but you’ll have a hard time of it in Slytherin. It would be easier in Gryffindor, no doubt about that. And you’d be happier in Hufflepuff.”

Mary thought at the hat angrily. Since when has anyone ever cared if I was _happy_? I don’t belong in the house of the loyal and true. I don’t even know what that _means_.

“You could, if you wanted to, but if you’re sure you won’t take the easy path, it had better be SLYTHERIN!”

Mary sat, stunned. She had heard the last word shouted to the entire hall, but until that moment, she hadn’t been sure. Now it was final: She was a Slytherin. She wondered belatedly what the hat meant, when it said Gryffindor would be easier.

“And my dear?” the hat added, before she could take it off, “There is always a choice. Remember that.”

And what the hell is that supposed to mean? But the hat didn’t answer, so she set it gently on the stool and made her way toward the Slytherin table, head held high. She was so preoccupied by the hat’s parting comment that she didn’t notice the moment of stunned silence that had preceded the clapping. No one had expected The Girl Who Lived, Child Champion of the Light, to go to Slytherin house, except perhaps a few of her fellow first-years.

Hermione was the first to break into applause, followed by the Slytherins, and then the Weasley twins gave a wolf whistle, and the rest of the hall joined in politely, as they had for every other student. Mary sat down between Lilian Moon and an older boy, and turned to watch the rest of the sorting.

She could see the High Table properly now. The closest professor was a sallow man with a hooked nose and lanky black hair. His robes were black, just like Professor McGonagall’s, except they had green-and-silver trim instead of red-and-gold. He was glaring intensely at a nervous-looking young man in a very large purple turban. The woman seated on his other side apparently noticed his distraction, because she reached over and pinched him. He transferred his glare to her instead, then hid his anger under a mask of indifference as he turned back to the sorting.

Hagrid was at the far end of the table, but caught Mary’s eye and gave her a thumbs up, anyway. Mary grinned. In the center of the table, in a large golden chair, sat Headmaster Dumbledore. He looked just the same as he had when he visited her earlier in the summer. His silver hair was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts. There was Madam Hooch, her hair a tangled mess, as though she had just been flying. She was seated next to a middle-aged woman, dressed like a hippy, with giant, coke-bottle glasses, and a tiny, very old man with slightly pointed ears. The rest of the professors looked more normal, except for the fact that they were all wearing wizards’ robes, of course.

Zacharias Smith, as he had predicted, became a Hufflepuff, and Ron Weasley went to Gryffindor with his brothers, to huge applause. Blaise Zabini, who was the last student to be sorted, came to Slytherin and found a seat not too far from Mary. Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away with little ceremony.

Mary looked down at her empty plate, thinking that it had been an awful long time since that sandwich, and wondering what time it was, and when they would be fed. She had gotten used to regular meals with the Grangers, and was now much hungrier than she had been while she was nervously waiting to be sorted.

The Headmaster had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

“Welcome,” he said. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

“Thank you!”

He sat back down. The nearby Slytherins clapped politely, as they had for each first-year student. Mary heard cheers and laughter from the other tables.

“Mad old bugger,” muttered the older boy next to Mary.

“Do you know,” she said conversationally, to no one in particular, “the first time I saw him, I thought he looked like a wizard from a muggle storybook, and not a real wizard at all?”

Lilian Moon giggled at this, and introduced herself, which she said was only polite, even if they did already know each other’s names. The food appeared while neither of them was paying much attention to the table. It was arranged, as far as Mary could tell, in no particular order. There were so many different dishes (chicken, beef, pork, lamb, sausages, piles of rolls, an enormous tossed salad, nearly a dozen different side dishes and gravy boats, and peppermint humbugs, which seemed strangely out of place) that she couldn’t decide what to eat, and ended up with a few bites of everything on her plate.  

The Slytherins didn’t talk much as they ate, and though Mary was very curious about her new housemates, she followed their lead. She could see younger students at the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables still craning to get looks at her, and she was nearly certain the Hufflepuffs were, too, but they were behind her, so she didn’t know for sure. She pretended that she hadn’t noticed.

She finished her meal long before most other people at the table and turned to her favorite pastime of people-watching instead. She spotted Hermione, who was talking animatedly with (or at) an older Ravenclaw, but her back was to Mary, so she didn’t wave. There was a bit of a to-do over at the Gryffindor table as one of the ghosts, the one who had asked who they all were before the sorting, pulled his head off his giant ruff.

Older Slytherins were talking quietly with their friends in little groups along the table as they finished their food. There was a pleasant babble of conversation from behind her, as the Hufflepuffs welcomed their friends back to the Castle and caught up with each other. The Gryffindors were the loudest table in the hall and many of them gestured wildly, acting out the stories of their summers, perhaps, as they talked. Three of the Ravenclaws closest to Mary had started what looked like a heated argument, though she could hardly hear them between the dull roar from the Gryffindors on one side of the hall and the babble of Hufflepuff voices on the other. One of them shoved their plates aside, pulled out a bit of parchment, and started drawing something, presumably to make her point, but one of the others stole her quill and started scratching out something else instead.

“Hey, Mary,” Lilian poked her in the shoulder, “Aren’t you going to have desert? Miss Farley said the serving dishes disappear in about five minutes,” she said, pointing at the girl on her other side. While Mary had been watching the Ravenclaws argue, the remnants of the main course had vanished and been replaced by every kind of dessert she could imagine.

“Oh! Thanks!” She took a scoop of the nearest block of ice cream, which turned out to be pistachio with caramel and little chocolate chips in it.

“So, Mary, tell me about yourself,” Lilian said, rather abruptly.

Mary thought about this for a moment, then said, “Erm… what do you want to know?”

“Where have you been for the past ten years?” the other girl asked.

That was a much easier question to answer than just trying to think of things about herself to say. “I grew up with my mother’s sister, in the muggle world. Surrey. What about you?”

“My family lives in Devon. What’s it like living with muggles?”

“Well, the Dursleys, that’s my aunt and uncle, were awful. They hated magic, and me. But after I found out about magic, I met one of the other muggleborn students and stayed with her family last month. They’re probably the nicest people I’ve ever met.” She thought for another long moment, trying to figure out how to explain what the muggle world was _like_. “I don’t really know what it’s like to live with magic,” she pointed out, “So I don’t really know what’s different. You don’t have televisions or computers or anything like that in the wizarding world, right?”

“No! What’s a tele…?”

“Television.”

“Yeah. And the other thing.”

“Television is… it’s a box that shows recorded moving pictures that are broadcast… I don’t really know how. But it’s like the talking portraits, except they don’t talk to you, like a conversation, they just act out stories. And you can tune it to different channels, it’s not always the same thing.”

“Like the wireless, but with pictures?”

“Yeah. You have radio?”

“Of course! What was that other thing you said?”

“Computers? They’re machines. They… that use logic to answer questions. Like maths and stuff. And you can play games on it, too.” She probably shouldn’t have brought up computers. She didn’t really know what they did or how you used one properly, other than the little Hermione had showed her over the summer, or what you would want to use it for, other than playing games.

Apparently the other girl didn’t think they sounded that interesting either, though, because she changed the subject. “What do they do for fun, muggles?”

“I dunno. My aunt and uncle didn’t really do much. Watch television, I guess. Complain about the government? And sometimes they’d go out to the theater. The Grangers mostly read books or listened to records. And Mr. Dr. Granger likes cooking, so he makes really fancy meals on the weekends.” She shrugged. “What do wizards do for fun?”

Now it was Lilian’s turn to shrug. “Who knows what adults do for fun? But my brother and sister and I used to spend a lot of time looking for magical creatures in the woods and making photos of them. Sean likes photography and Aerin likes animals. Sean’s a prefect, now. He’s somewhere down there,” Lilian waved at the other end of the Slytherin table, “And Aerin’s a second-year Ravenclaw. I’m glad I’m here now. It was lonely last year at home without her. Did you meet anyone interesting on the train?”

Mary had, on reflection, met a lot of interesting people on the train, but before she could decide whether to tell Lilian about Lee Jordan and the Weasley twins (because they were the funniest) or Malfoy and his goons (because they would undoubtedly be her rivals within Slytherin) or the other first-years (who might actually be in classes with them) or Morgana Yaxley (because she was an important contact in their house), the remainder of the deserts disappeared (there was a shout of outrage from someone at the Gryffindor table, who hadn’t finished theirs) and the Headmaster stood up again.

“Ahem – just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.

“First-years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.”

Dumbledore’s twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of Gryffindor table, and the Weasley twins stood and saluted him.

“I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.

“Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.

“Some of you may be aware that Professor Mathieu has declined to continue her position as Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor for this year. Thankfully, Professor Quirrell, whom I trust older students will remember,” the young man in the purple turban stood and bowed slightly before returning to his seat, “has returned from his sabbatical and volunteered to take on the post. Professor Pierce will therefore be taking over Muggle Studies in a more permanent capacity.” An older wizard with flyaway blond hair stood, like Quirrell, and bowed.

“And finally,” continued the Headmaster, “I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right hand side of the main staircase is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death.”

“Bet you a galleon the first Gryffindor goes up there tonight,” the boy next to Mary, who she thought she had heard called Derrick, said to the person on his other side.

“Is he serious?” Lilian asked quietly.

Mary shrugged.

“And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!” cried Dumbledore. Mary noticed that the other teachers’ smiles had become rather fixed.

Lilian turned her head to listen to something the girl on her other side was whispering at her, and then back to Mary. “Miss Farley says plug your ears,” she said.

“Why?” Mary asked, but it immediately became clear as the Headmaster announced: “Everyone pick their favorite tune, and off we go!”

Most of the school bellowed out the words Dumbledore had enchanted to hang in midair, but Mary couldn’t actually make out any of it. If she had thought that the students were loud before, it was nothing to the sound of their combined “singing.” None of the Slytherins around her had joined in, and several had their fingers obviously in their ears, as though the entire affair was completely below their dignity. Several professors, including Professor McGonagall and the sallow professor nearest the Slytherin table, looked as though they would very much like to join in the ear-plugging, though a jolly, if slightly dumpy, grandmotherly looking woman was actually singing merrily. Mary thought that perhaps she would have sung, but she couldn’t think of a tune in the midst of the din that was everyone else.

Thankfully it ended quickly. Even the Weasley twins, who had chosen a very slow funeral march, took less than two minutes. Dumbledore conducted their last few lines with his wand and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.

“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!”

“Does he… does he act daft on purpose?” Lilian asked.

“The general consensus is yes,” said the girl on her other side, standing up and speaking loudly enough for Mary to hear her for the first time. Then she did some kind of spell that made it sound like her voice was right next to Mary’s ear, and said, “This is Gemma Farley, fifth-year prefect. First-years, meet in the entrance hall by the main doors in five minutes.”

###  Sunday, 1 September 1991 (10:00 pm)

#### Slytherin

The students stood up with a great scraping of wood on stone. Most of them headed toward the doors in a great mob, but some milled around talking to their friends in other houses.

Mary watched the first-year Gryffindors head out of the Great Hall after one of their prefects, who looked like he could be another Weasley brother, then went to catch Hermione before she left as well. It seemed she had some time, she thought, because as she passed by a knot of Ravenclaw prefects she heard them arguing about who should have to escort the first-years up to their Tower. Slytherin seemed to be much more prepared.

“Maia!” she called, and the older girl turned to swoop down on her with a hug.

“Congratulations, Lizzie!”

“You too! I have to go, we’re meeting in the entrance hall in a minute to go to the Common Room, but I wanted to ask if you want to meet up tomorrow after classes? Maybe in the Library? There has to be one somewhere. I told your mum and dad I would write them, and we should find the owls…”

“Okay! See you then! Oooh, I can’t wait for classes! I won’t be able to sleep a wink, I’m sure!”

Mary laughed. They had been up forever. She was sure _she_ would sleep just fine. “Gotta go,” she said, turning away. “’Night, Maia.”

“Goodnight, Lizzie!” Hermione’s voice followed her as she ran across the hall.

She reached the knot of first-years just before Gemma Farley joined them. A boy who looked so much like Lilian that he had to be her brother, Sean, accompanied her.

“Attention, baby snakes!” he announced. “I am Sean Moon, this is Gemma Farley, and we are your fifth-year prefects. Follow us and try to remember the path.” He began leading them down across the entrance hall and down a flight of stairs. “When we reach the Common Room, you will meet the sixth- and seventh-year prefects, as well as our Head of House, Professor Snape. Professor Snape will talk to you about Slytherin House, its rules and expectations. This will take at least half an hour. Probably an hour.” There was a chorus of groans. Apparently Mary wasn’t the only one who was tired. “Resign yourselves to it now, and hold your complaints.”

Gemma took over at that point. They had gone down two flights of stairs, and no one else was around to overhear. “Professor Snape is a night owl. He always holds House meetings between the hours of ten and midnight, since the alternative is before breakfast. Other things you should know about Professor Snape: He used to be a Death Eater – Keep the Truce and don’t talk about it; He takes his coffee plain and black – if you ever need to bribe him, that’s a good start; He and Professor Sinistra have a lust-hate thing going on – do not even think about commenting on it where either of them can hear. This is your only warning.

“Professor Snape’s official Office Hours are on Saturday evening, and he will never admit otherwise, but if you need to talk to him outside of that time, he is almost always in his office. If he is in his office and the door is not latched, you may knock. If the door is closed, you may wait, but he may or may not be in. Another alternative is to trail him after dinner and hope he doesn’t go to his private rooms. Never, ever knock on the door to Professor Snape’s private quarters.”

“The last kid who did was in the hospital wing for a week,” added Sean.

“Professor Snape does not eat breakfast, and often skips lunch as well. Do not make jokes about him being anorexic. He’s not, and it’s insensitive to anyone who is – Slytherins don’t insult people by accident. Don’t make jokes about his hair, either. Sinistra cursed it two years ago, and he hasn’t found the counter yet, so it’s a touchy subject for multiple reasons. There are three things that will get you a detention from Professor Snape, without fail: Jokes about his hair; messing around in Potions; and using the word ‘mudblood.’ Not only is it filthy language and minor breach of the Truce, the Professor himself is a halfblood, so watch your mouths. Am I forgetting anything, Sean?”

“He’s applied for the Defense position for the last five years running, and Dumbledore keeps refusing to give it to him. He therefore hates the DADA professor, no matter who it is. If you want to stay on Professor Snape’s good side, don’t ever say anything complimentary about the DADA professor. I think that’s it. Any questions?”

“Why are you telling us all this?” a girl with cornrows asked from the back of the group.

“Because we’re prefects, and it’s our job to explain things to you so you don’t make our house look like idiots. That includes explaining how to deal with our head of House. Any _other_ questions?” Sean paused for half a second, and no one said anything. “Good, because we’re here. Make a circle.”

The first-years sorted themselves out into a roughly circular formation. Mary found herself between Lilian and either Crabbe or Goyle, whoever was the taller of the two. Gemma whispered something in the ear of the first-year closest to her, a girl with a rather squished-looking nose. That girl then turned and whispered to the boy next to her.

Mary watched in bewilderment (why were they playing a muggle children’s game instead of going inside?) until Lilian whispered to her, “The password is _azmops fee_. Pass it on.”

Mary dutifully repeated this to Goyle (or Crabbe), and it continued around the circle until Blaise Zabini whispered it to Sean, who said aloud, “Nope, try again.”

Gemma whispered the password again, and when it made its way around the circle, Mary repeated “Az _mi_ ops fae” and then waited.

“Wrong,” Sean declared.

They tried three more times (all of them getting increasingly frustrated and wondering what the point of this was) before they managed to accurately repeat the password ( _Azemiops feae_ ), and Sean let them into the Common Room. They were at least two levels underground. The walls were the usual castle stone, but instead of the more open rooms of the upper floors, the Common Room was made up of a series of interlocking arches. Sofas and chairs placed between the arches partitioned the space into a veritable maze of little sitting areas with small braziers in the center of each. There were niches and nooks along the walls, and Mary thought that there might be doors or tunnels leading out of the room in places where the shadows looked a bit too deep. She loved it.

It seemed that everyone else in the House was already assembled, including the hook-nosed professor with the green and silver trim on his robes. He flicked his wand and the time (10:27) appeared in glowing red numbers. “Four minutes faster than last year,” he noted. He had a soft, dry voice that reminded Mary of Ozone. She wondered if he could talk to snakes too. Someone, probably a second-year, complained that their password had been _Tropidolaemus wagleri_ , which was far more difficult, but he was ignored by the Head of House, and one of his friends hit him in the back of the head for interrupting. “Congratulations Fawley, Moon.” The professor turned to the assembled first-years, who had formed a huddle just inside the door. “I am Professor Snape, Head of Slytherin House and your Potions professor. Welcome to the House. Please introduce yourselves one at a time.” No one stepped forward, so Professor Snape pointed at random into the center of the huddle. “You. Begin.”

At least three people started talking at once, but Draco Malfoy was the only one who didn’t stop. Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson took their turns after Draco, and then Tracy Davis, who had asked why the prefects were telling them about Professor Snape. Theodore (do not call me Teddy) Nott went next, then Lilian, then Mary. The professor’s eyes narrowed at her when she introduced herself as Elizabeth, but he didn’t object. Daphne Greengrass was a girl with long blonde hair. Millicent Bulstrode was the tallest girl. Vinnie Crabbe was the taller of Malfoy’s goons, and Greg Goyle the shorter.

“Excellent,” said Professor Snape. He raised his voice ever so slightly. “First House Meeting will be Saturday the seventh at ten sharp. My office hours remain Saturday, seven to nine pm, unless otherwise posted on the notice board. Note that Fawley and Moon are the new fifth-year prefects. You all know my rules and expectations for you. I expect you to abide by them, as always. Slytherin House, you are dismissed. First-years and prefects, remain behind.” All the other students streamed out of the room, lighting their wands and walking into the shadowy nooks which Mary saw were, indeed, tunnels. The remaining Slytherins moved to one of the larger sitting-areas.

Professor Snape talked (or perhaps _lectured_ was a better word) for some time about the ideals of Slytherin House: excellence, ambition, and cunning; their two unofficial rules (What happens in Slytherin stays in Slytherin and Don’t Get Caught) and the official school rules (Use common sense; don’t use magic in the corridors; if you must use magic in the corridors, see Slytherin House Rule No. 2; do not invite students from different houses into your common room, and do not give out its passwords). He pointed out the House Library, which contained several copies of the Student Handbook they were expected to read by the end of the week. He then discussed house points and the house cup, which Slytherin planned to take for the seventh consecutive year.

He discussed the fact that the only person allowed in one’s bedroom was oneself until fourth year, and that the wards would keep out any other students except the seventh-year prefects, who would periodically check for contraband items. He said that ‘contraband’ meant anything illegal, and also listed a number of legal but potential dangerous items that were not allowed. He described the system for tutoring which was in place (“Slytherin House values success, and you _will_ work to excel, including academically.”), and repeated his office hours, if any student should wish to talk to him outside of their mandatory monthly one-on-one new-student meetings.

He outlined the requirements of the Truce in detail: don’t talk openly about specific events in the War; don’t talk openly about the Dark Lord; do NOT take revenge for anything that happened in the War in any way; you may not hold your peers responsible for the actions of their parents, regardless of their side; students from Light families may not deride or use their wands against students from Dark families for their parents’ allegiance in the war; students from Dark families may not be openly prejudiced against muggleborns, mixed-blood students, or so-called “blood-traitors”; failure to hold to the terms of the Truce revokes its protections from you. (Mary still had no idea if the Truce was an official thing, or just the Way Things Worked, but she didn’t ask. Professor Snape had not invited questions.) This was followed by the Slytherin policy on hazing (no permanent damage and it stays in Slytherin) adding at the end that if a student felt that they were being harassed to the point of bullying or that someone had violated the Truce, they should come talk to him. Anything told to him in confidence would be kept confidential.

The practice of Dark Arts was forbidden at Hogwarts, but Professor Snape noted that House Rule No. 2 always applied. Black Arts and White Arts were both forbidden _and_ prevented by the school wards, on the grounds that all of the Black arts were illegal, and neither class of rituals was something that students should be messing around with. Active followers of the Old Ways had unofficial permission to leave campus on the nights of the six major Sabbats that school was in session, but not official permission, because, as the professor put it in a somewhat pained voice, “The Headmaster is a _progressive_.”

Finally, the seventh- and sixth-year prefects introduced themselves. Professor Snape explained that prefects could remove points from any student for infractions of the major or minor rules, give detentions, and submit requests to him to award points as well. Minor disagreements could be settled by any prefect, though if one wanted to bring a case against another Slytherin student for gross misconduct and request physical punishment, suspension, or expulsion, that student would have to wait for the Prefects’ Council, which occurred on the new moon of each month, “in accordance with the bylaws” (which were presumably written down somewhere). Seventh-year prefects were Frances Burke and Ellen Rowle; sixth-year prefects were Charisma Avery and Liam Rosier; Miss Avery and Mr. Rosier were expected to deal with the bulk of the underclassmen’s problems and disputes, because the fifth-years had OWLs to deal with and seventh-years had NEWTs, which Mary gathered were like AS and A-levels for wizards.

“You will receive your class schedules tomorrow morning at breakfast. It is recommended that you move in groups for the first few days, until you figure out where all of your classes are. If you get lost, ask a portrait for directions. A prefect will escort you to breakfast, which is served at the unholy hour of _seven_ , for the first two weeks, simply because there are no portraits in the dungeons. You are not required to attend meals, but you are not to abuse the house elves’ hospitality by asking them to fetch you snacks at odd hours. If you have questions about the school, classes, professors, or anything else, you are encouraged to ask your prefects. It is their job to make sure that you integrate smoothly into the Hogwarts student body, and don’t make Slytherin House look stupid while doing so. It is recommended that you check the notice board by the door at least twice a day for reminders about important House events. New passwords will be posted there fortnightly.

“Now,” the Head of House said with a swift and somewhat threatening look at them, “We shall check whether you have all been paying attention.”

Several of the first-years looked like they had been nodding off, and many others had clearly stopped paying attention somewhere around House Rule No. 2. They sat up straight in alarm.

“Miss Bulstrode, who should you talk to about minor disputes with other Slytherins?”

Millicent looked startled, but she managed to squeak out an answer. “Sixth-year prefects?” Professor Snape nodded.

“Mr. Crabbe, what is the first rule of Slytherin House?”

“Don’t get caught, sir?”

“No, that’s the second rule. Miss Davis?”

“What happens in Slytherin stays in Slytherin, sir.”

“Correct. Mr. Goyle, what is the penalty for failure to obey the Truce?” He waited for a long moment, but Gregory did not respond. “Somebody kick Mr. Goyle,” the professor said. Draco Malfoy did so, waking the larger boy with a start. “Thank you, Mr. Malfoy. You may answer the question.”

“Failure to obey the terms of the Truce results in loss of the protection of the Truce, sir.” Malfoy flushed, probably thinking of the dressing-down Morgana had given him on the train.

“Indeed. Miss Greengrass, give us one school rule.”

“Erm… don’t give out the Common Room password, sir.”

“Correct. Miss Moon,” Lilian stiffened next to Mary. “What is the Slytherin policy on the Dark Arts?”

Lilian relaxed and gave the professor a cheeky grin. “Don’t get caught, sir.”

He nodded gravely. “Mr. Nott, what should you do if you are lost in the Castle?”

“Ask a portrait for directions, sir.”

“Yes. Miss Parkinson, I assigned you a task to be completed by the end of the week. What was it?”

She hesitated for a moment, obviously thinking furiously, but eventually answered, “Read the School Handbook, sir.” The first-years looked at each other guiltily. They had all forgotten that assignment already, in the flood of other information.

“Indeed. Miss Potter, why do you think you learned the password to the house in the manner that you did?”

Mary frowned. That was a much harder question than anyone else had gotten. But it wasn’t as though she could refuse to answer, or as though she hadn’t thought about it while they were all standing around, waiting for the next mangled word to come to them. “Maybe… so we could see how words get confused, when they’re passed around, sir?”

“Acceptable. And Mr. Zabini, how can we apply the knowledge gained from the password exercise?” Mary was somewhat relieved. He wasn’t really picking on her. She just had the bad luck to be second-to-last alphabetically.

Blaise hesitated for a moment, then said, “Gossip, sir?”

“Elaborate, Mr. Zabini.”

“We shouldn’t take anything we hear indirectly at face value, sir.”

“Correct. Now, who can tell me the password to the Common Room? Mr. Goyle?” Apparently the sleeping boy would be given a chance to redeem himself.

“Azmiops feae?”

Professor Snape rolled his eyes. “No. Az _e_ miops feae. It will be posted on the notice-board in the morning. _Do_ make sure you all have it memorized before you leave for breakfast. The prefects will now show you to your rooms. You are dismissed.”

Professor Snape spun on his heel and strode from the Common Room, hardly pausing at the enchanted door. His robes fluttered behind him impressively.

“Is he always so…” Lilian began, as soon as the door closed behind him.

“Intimidating?” her brother asked. “Pretty much. But you’ll learn a lot from him, if you pay attention.” The first years nodded at this, and Sean continued. “Right, then. Boys follow me, girls follow Farley. I drew the short straw, so I’ll see you here at quarter of seven to lead you to the Hall. Welcome to the Snake Pit.” He gave them the same cheeky grin Lilian had sported earlier, and the girls looked around for Miss Farley. After a moment, they spotted her lurking in the shadows next to one of the wall arches. The older prefects had disappeared while Sean was talking.

“Come along, snakelings,” she said in a bored tone, and turned into the darkness, holding up her wand. It had a bright blue light at the end. She began to lecture them in a tired voice. “This tunnel leads to the girls’ dorms. You each have your own bedroom, and as Professor Snape mentioned, you are the only student who can get in, other than Rowle and Burke. Their inspections happen randomly. Each year shares a common bathroom, and there are several smaller connecting tunnels which lead more directly to the Common Room or to the boys’ dorms, or to various secret exits from Slytherin. The only _entrance_ is in the Common Room, mind.”

She paused by a side-passage and held her wand near the wall above the opening to the passage. The first-years saw a symbol like a snake curled into a half-circle around the number four. “The passages are all marked out with symbols indicating where they lead. This one leads to the fourth junction on the boys’ path. You can tell the main path through all the girls’ junctions by this symbol here.” She shined the wand-light on a serpentine figure-eight symbol carved into the floor. The girls crowded around, peering at it.

“We’re coming up on the first junction now: second year,” she led them on into a larger, chamber-like space. It had a small dome over it, and six doorways leading off of it, not counting the tunnel opening they had come through, and one on the opposite side of the circle. A large ‘2’ was carved into the center of the floor “Student rooms are unmarked, or marked with personal runes or family crests, if the student chooses. You keep the same room for all seven years. Bathrooms are marked with a triangle. Upward pointing triangles are for boys’; downward pointing for girls’.” She showed them that one of the doorways was marked with an inverted triangle.

They continued on, across the second-year girls’ junction. The tunnel made a sharp right, and they passed two other side passages before they paused again. “This is an ouroboros,” she showed them a carving of a snake biting its tail marked over yet another passage. “All the tunnels marked with an ouroboros lead back to the Common Room, but some are much more direct than others, and they shift from time to time, like the rest of the castle.”

They walked on for another minute before they arrived in what Gemma declared to be the first-year junction. Unlike the second-years’, it had seven doors, and there was only one tunnel entrance. The bathroom was located opposite the tunnel opening, and their surnames hovered over each of the other six doors in glowing blue letters.

“Go check that your luggage was all delivered properly,” Gemma said, and each of the girls went to her own marked door. As soon as they touched the doorknobs, their names vanished. “The key for the torches is ‘ _lucernae_ ,’” she added.

Mary stepped into the dark chamber, entirely uncertain as to whether she needed her wand or not. Cammy had dimmed the torches in the red and silver room when she went to bed, and lit them in the evenings when she had brought dinner. “Lucernae!” she said firmly. Apparently a wand was unnecessary, because six torches burst into enchanted flames around her, their light spilling out into the junction room.

Her bedroom was round, like a circle just barely touching the other circle of the junction. A four-poster bed with green hangings and silver trim sat on one side of the room, its foot sticking out more than halfway across the room, which was rather small. Her trunk sat just to the left of the door, and there was a wardrobe to the right. The next segment of the room had nothing on the wall, but that was good, because it meant that she could walk around the end of the bed. There was a desk in the next section, with a curved back edge that fit snug against the wall, and then an empty book case between the bed and the desk. All the wood was dark, and looked marvelous against the light stone and green of the bed. It was snug, smaller than Dudley’s second bedroom, but she liked it.

“Come on out, girls, I have a few more things to tell you before you can go to sleep.”

The girls returned to their junction room with various degrees of reluctance. Mary hoped that Gemma would hurry. She really wanted to try out the bed, and morning would come sooner than she wanted to think about.

“You’ll most likely want to come to an arrangement on who uses the bathroom when,” the prefect said, crossing to that door. “As there are only two showers and two sinks. _Lucernae_ ,” she ordered, holding the door open for them to peer in at the bathroom. It also had two toilet stalls, and a large vanity built into one wall. There were cubbies by the door for their toiletries, and a row of hooks on the outside of one of the shower stalls for towels.

“The house elves will wash towels and clothes left in the hamper in your wardrobe on Wednesday and Sunday. If you neglected to have name-tags added to your clothes, mind you do so before you put anything in the hamper, or you might not get them back. There is a rubbish bin under your desk. It is emptied on Monday afternoon, so don’t go leaving apple cores and so on in it. Bedclothes are changed once a month, and the elves will dust and mop and so on then as well. You lot are scheduled for the sixteenth of the month. Mind you put away anything you don’t want the elves moving, because they tidy _everything_. An elf throwing out your homework because they thought it was rubbish is no excuse for not turning it in.

“Finally, there are several enchantments on your room. You obviously can’t open the windows,” A few girls smiled at that. Mary hadn’t even noticed a window. “But there is a fresh-air enchantment which makes it seem like there is a light breeze blowing through the room. The key is ‘ _auram’_ and the anti-key is ‘ _cessa’_. There is a wake-up enchantment, built into the headboard of the bed. _Imago_.” Gemma waved her wand and an illusory headboard appeared next to her. “You set the wake-up time by touching your wand to the snake image at the center of the headboard and stating the time you wish to wake up. I recommend six, tomorrow morning. The time it’s set for will appear in silver above the snake, and a count-down will appear below it.” The illusion changed accordingly. “Hours, minutes, seconds. You tap the snake with your wand again to make the alarm stop.” She dissipated the illusion with another wave of her wand. “The lights come on in the corridors at six am, and go out at ten pm. The lights in the Common Room are always on, but for your rooms the bathrooms, and the Library, as I’ve already said, the torches respond to _lucernae_. The anti-key is ‘ _finis_ ’. Does anyone have any questions?”

Mary raised her hand tentatively.

“Potter?”

“I, erm… forgot to bring toiletries,” she said quietly. “And a towel.”

“Give the house elves some coin, and they’ll bring you whatever you need tomorrow between classes and dinner. They only go shopping once a day, in the afternoon, so if anyone thinks of anything they need, tell Podley before lunch. Podley!”

An elf appeared with a small pop. Mary could tell he was a boy because he wore his tea-towel over one shoulder instead of both. His ears were smaller than Cammy’s, and his eyes seemed to be a darker shade than her bright blue, but it was hard to make out anything else in the half-light from the open bedroom doors. “Yes, Missy Prefect?”

“This is Podley. He keeps an eye on the Slytherin dorms and common room, and relays requests to the other elves as needed. You are not to abuse the elves’ hospitality. They work for Hogwarts, not for you. That said, you are free to make small requests if you really need to. Podley, these are the new first-year girls.” Podley bowed in their general direction. “Miss Potter needs to make an addition to tomorrow’s shopping list, and request the use of toiletries and a towel from general stores for tomorrow morning.”

“I forgot my toothbrush,” added Tracy Davis.

“And please send Miss Davis a toothbrush from general stores as well. Anyone else?” No one said anything. “That will be all then, Podley.”

“Yes, Missy Prefect. Welcome to Hogwarts, young Misses,” said the elf, disappearing with a pop.

“Anyone else have questions?”

“What’s the anti-key for the lights, again?” asked Daphne.

“ _Finis_.” There was a bit of muttering as the girls repeated this to themselves. “Right then, don’t forget to set your alarms, and meet Moon in the Common Room at six forty-five to head to breakfast. Most of us older students don’t do breakfast, but if you have questions, ask someone at lunch or dinner. Avery or Rosier would be the best, if you can find them. Their office hours will be posted on the notice board as well. Welcome to the House,” she added, and then left the junction to a chorus of “thank you” and “goodnight, Miss Farley”.

The girls stared at each other awkwardly for a moment, until Pansy announced that she would be up to shower at six, and bid them goodnight. Mary managed to get in the second round of showers, wondering how long Pansy and Millicent might be expected to take. She supposed she should be up and waiting at six, anyway. She retired to her room, changed into her usual wizarding underclothes/pajamas, and had just set her alarm when Podley re-appeared with a towel, a vial of shampoo and a tiny bar of soap. He presented these with a bow, and she quickly wrote out a list of things she needed.

“How much do you think all this will cost, Pod?” she asked, digging her coin purse out of her trunk.

The elf considered for a moment. “Perhaps is being a galleon six, Miss Mary,” he squeaked. “Not more.”

Mary handed him two galleons with heartfelt thanks, and added, “Please say hello to Cammy for me.”

“Of course, Miss Mary,” he said with a grin. “And Podley will be bringings Missy’s things tomorrow evening before third meal, yes.” And he disappeared with a pop.

Mary fell into bed, mind whirling from the day’s experiences, but certain that she would get along just fine. The other Slytherins would make sure of it, if only to defend their House reputation as being the best. She was asleep before she could order the torches out.


	9. Chapter 8: The First Week in Review

###  Sunday, 1 September 1991 (After the Sorting)

#### Hogwarts

##### Albus

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore returned to his quarters after the Sorting of 1991 in a grave mood. Mary Potter was deviating from his plan for her. She was _supposed_ to be the Girl Who Lived, a figurehead to lead the light when Lord Voldemort returned, and allow Neville Longbottom, the Child of the Prophecy, to get along with the task of destroying the Dark Lord once and for all unmolested. Instead… instead she was a Slytherin. It was a third step away from the path he had laid out for her, and he was uncertain whether she could be brought back into line.

The first step, of course, away from Petunia and Vernon Dursley, had been made for her. (He had still not entirely forgiven Minerva for wresting away his power over the girl and insisting that she would not return to that house, regardless of all his arguments.)

The second step, he had first thought, might be one in the right direction. The child had returned to the Muggle world for the last month of the summer, content to stay with the family of one of the other muggleborn first-years. She was distanced from Minerva, isolated from the magical world, and would come to the school among all the other first-years.

That had been a mistake, he thought, as soon as he saw the child walk back into the Castle.

The first time he saw her, she was everything he could have hoped for: quiet but open, apparently guileless and ready to be molded into whatever shape he chose. She would be the lost Prince(ss) found, raised by a goatherd, her noble spirit shining through despite her lowly upbringing. He had been disturbed to find, of course, that she was a parselmouth – but she admitted it freely, and answered his questions openly, and told the truth clearly.

She would surely sort into Gryffindor after her parents, or Hufflepuff to make up for the (admittedly poor) circumstances of her childhood – what lonely child wouldn’t want to go to a house where people held their friends in highest esteem? Even Ravenclaw was an option, with the way she professed to hate only people who treated her like an idiot, and (quite rightly) insisted that she hadn’t done anything to deserve the title of Girl Who Lived. She saw things clearly. The only house he would not see her in was Slytherin, and she had not revealed any great ambitions, or any hint of deceit or manipulation. Even a quick dip into her mind showed only her concern with the present moment. She thought him odd, but then, what student didn’t?

He would make her a living symbol for the Light, strengthening their bonds and giving them hope when Lord Voldemort returned. His instruments still indicated, after all these years, that Tom Riddle was alive, somewhere in the world, and besides, the Dark Lord had yet to mark the boy as his equal. The Light would be ready to fight against him once again when he returned. She would be safe enough – there was no call for a young girl to be fighting on the front lines, after all. He would train her to stand meekly at his side and support him, give her clever sound-bites to pass on to reporters, let her innate innocence and purity be a beacon for all the Wizarding world to unite behind.

And then the unthinkable happened: the third step. The child sorted into Slytherin. It wasn’t that he _hated_ Slytherin, or thought that the house was evil, as such… but one did have to admit that focusing on selfish traits and pitting students against each other, as the House of Serpents must, tended to produce… sharp-edged individuals. Slytherins were ambitious, yes, driven to excellence… but they were also deceptive, manipulative, and cunning. The majority of them were from the Old Families, who still instilled their children with political acumen and ambitions even before they entered Hogwarts. They did not trust easily, seeing the potential for manipulation where none was intended and refusing to allow themselves to be easily guided by an outside hand. And placing all the most Slytherin children in each other’s company for seven years all but guaranteed that these traits would be developed more strongly than any others, as they found common ground with each other through the power politics of that House.

What had the muggles done to the girl? The Grangers’ own daughter, of course, had Sorted into Ravenclaw. He somehow doubted that a month in their care would have been enough to counter years of interactions with the Dursleys. She should still have been the quiet, open girl he had read a bare month before. True, she had a friend now, but one would think that having a friend would have shown her the value in Hufflepuff, or sent her to Ravenclaw after the other girl, even if she was not suited to Gryffindor. And she clearly had more confidence now than she had then, a Gryffindor trait if ever there was one! It was absurd.

She must have had to _argue_ for Slytherin. It wasn’t as though she really did have dominant Slytherin traits (she couldn’t have – he would have seen some trace of them, surely), so the only other thing that could have sent her there was an honest belief on her part that Slytherin was the right house for her.

Dumbledore scowled. It was an unusual expression for his face, so usually set in grandfatherly kindness. He had thought he could count on Minerva at the _very_ least to stump for her old house, a bit. And he _knew_ that Hagrid had told the girls all about her parents’ school days. She _should_ have wanted nothing more than to become a Gryffindor!

He wrote an angry note to Minerva and sent it to her office before retiring.

##### Minerva

Minerva McGonagall made a habit of visiting her office before the start of classes each day to answer the early post (or the late post, as it may be) and deal with as many duties of the Deputy Head as she could before turning to concentrate on teaching.

She received Albus’ note at six am on the first day of classes, reprimanding her for not convincing Mary Potter that Gryffindor was the best of houses, and the only true fit for her, and laughed for a good five minutes. Surely _anyone_ could see that the girl was a Slytherin at heart? She was a _parselmouth_ , for the love of Light. That _alone_ should have been enough to sort her into Slytherin’s house. More than that, she trusted no one, and had spent the last ten years of her life fending for herself against the Dursleys. Was it any wonder that she seemed to value her independence and autonomy above all else? She had come with Minerva, away from the Dursleys, half an hour after meeting her, not because she instantly trusted the older witch, but because she was seizing the opportunity dangled in front of her with both hands. She had made sure that she would be able to change her guardian at will before agreeing to the arrangement, and had already shown a distinct interest in learning where the lines of power lay in the Magical British political world. Her letters while at the Grangers’ had cheerfully admitted that all four of them were studying history, politics and law.

She sent a note of her own to Albus before breakfast:

_Albus, I know you wanted a Gryffindor Savior, but you must be blind if you can’t see that she’s been a Slytherin from the start. Have you forgotten that Slytherin valued independence almost as highly as ambition? After ten years of living with the Dursleys, is it any surprise that deception and manipulation are second-nature to her? I will thank you not to blame me for your own mistakes._

She was enough of a professional not to try to bias new students toward any House in particular. And anyway, it would do Severus good to have to face the reality of Lily Potter’s death. She could think of nothing that would make him confront it more directly than having to deal with her young daughter on a regular basis.

Albus looked distinctly sour at breakfast. Minerva smiled. It would be a good first day.

##### Severus

If Severus Snape had been prone to showing emotion in public, his mouth surely would have dropped open in shock on hearing that _Mary Potter_ , of all girls, had been Sorted into his House. He fixed a smirk on his face and pushed the emotion from the front of his mind, clapping politely as he had for all the other new Slytherins, mind whirling.

It might take some time, he decided, to process this new turn of events.

He had not reached a conclusion by Monday morning.

###  Monday, 2 September - Friday, 6 September 1991

#### Hogwarts

“There, look!”

“Where?”

“With the other Slytherins.”

“Wearing the glasses?”

“Did you see her face?”

“Did you see her scar?”

Whispers followed Mary from the moment she left her dorm the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at her, or doubled back to pass her in the corridors again, staring. Mary wished they wouldn’t, because she was trying to concentrate on finding her way around the castle.

The first-year Slytherins did indeed travel between classes together, but Mary thought that navigating the Castle in a group was hardly easier than navigating it alone would have been. For one thing, if you were alone, you didn’t have to worry about Millicent Bulstrode or Blaise Zabini being too slow to get on a moving staircase, or Draco Malfoy insulting a door that you really needed to be polite to in order to get through. But she had to admit that it was nice to have other people there to remind you that there was a vanishing step halfway up the next stair, or that a certain door was really only a patch of wall pretending, and confirm that yes, that was the same portrait you used as a landmark on Monday – the people moved, but the frame stayed the same.

The ghosts didn’t help, either. The Bloody Baron, who was their House Ghost, didn’t talk much, even to give directions out of the dungeons, and it was always a shock when one of the others glided through a door you were trying to open. The Fat Friar would point anyone in the right direction, but Peeves the Poltergeist was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late to class. He would pelt you with bits of chalk or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, “GOT YOUR CONK!” Some of the pureblood kids tried to hex him – they all learned jinxes and hexes before they came to school – but they didn’t do anything except make him mad.

Even worse than Peeves, if that was possible, was the caretaker, Argus Filch. The Slytherins managed to get on the wrong side of him on Thursday, when he found them lost somewhere on the fourth floor that he said they had no business being. They agreed – they should have been on the sixth floor, for History of Magic – but he wouldn’t help them find their way back, and then Lilian said something sarcastic, and he decided to hold it against all of them. He was threatening to lock them in the dungeons when Professor McGonagall rescued them.

Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-colored creature with bulging, lamp-like eyes, just like Filch’s. She patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she’d whisk off for Filch, who’d appear, wheezing, two seconds later. The Weasley twins demonstrated this for them on Tuesday, setting off a dungbomb at her, and disappearing through a tapestry that was apparently an illusion a bare moment before the caretaker appeared. They asked Jamie Warren about him at lunch that day, and he told them that Filch knew the secret passages better than anyone except maybe the Weasley twins, and that he was a Squib, which was why he was so close to Mrs. Norris. Apparently Squibs had an affinity for cats, or could communicate with them, or something. By the end of the week, it was the dearest wish of many new students to give Mrs. Norris a good kick for Filch.

The classes themselves were fascinating, but difficult. Mary quickly found out that there was a lot more to magic than just waving your wand and saying a few funny words that sounded like Latin (but often weren’t, quite, according to Hermione, who knew these things).

First-year Slytherins and Ravenclaws studied the night skies through their telescopes on Thursday at midnight, and learned the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week, they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology with the dumpy, grandmotherly Head of Hufflepuff house, Professor Sprout. She taught them how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and what they were used for.

Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only class taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. He droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dated, and got Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up. By the end of the first week, the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs had agreed to take it in turns to take notes, so that the rest of them could have a nap. It hardly mattered. Everything was in the textbook, and the professor never seemed to notice his students.

Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was the tiny old man Mary had noticed at the opening feast, with the slightly pointed ears. One of the older Slytherin girls had said he was part-goblin (she followed this with “filthy halfbreed,” but Mary supposed the information itself was still accurate). He was also Head of Ravenclaw House, and Hermione said he was an ex-duelist. He stood on a pile of books to see over his desk (which was rudely proportioned for a normal-sized wizard). At the start of their first class he took the roll call, and when he reached Mary’s name, he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight. Slytherin and Ravenclaw had Charms together.

Professor McGonagall was different in the classroom than in private. In private, she had been very supportive and kind. In class, she was clever and very, very strict. She gave them a talking-to about safety the moment they sat down in her first class, again with the Hufflepuffs.

“Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts,” she concluded. “Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned.”

Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn’t wait to get started, but soon realized that they weren’t going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking lots of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. This was much more difficult than the things Mary and Hermione had tried over the past month, like turning feathers into different kinds of feathers, or a flower into a feather. By the end of the lesson, several people had made their matches pointy, and Hannah Abbot managed to make hers silvery, but no one had actually managed the job.

The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell’s lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. The Slytherins consoled themselves with the knowledge that anything they wanted to know about the Dark Arts, their older housemates could teach them. Quirrell’s classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he’d met in Romania. His turban, he told them, was a gift from an African prince – a thank-you for ridding him of a troublesome zombie. No one believed this story. The Weasley twins had put it about that the turban was stuffed full of garlic as well, so that Quirrell was protected wherever he went. The worst part of the class wasn’t the disappointment that they spent the whole class reading the textbook, though, or that they came out of it smelling like an Italian restaurant, or even listening to Quirrell’s stuttering as he tried to answer Zacharias Smith’s pointed questions about zombie extermination. In the very first DADA lesson, while Quirrell was taking attendance, he met Mary’s eye and a stabbing pain had shot through her head, like someone had stabbed a knife through the lightning-shaped scar on her forehead and straight into her brain. It had happened every time she met his eye – there was no way it was a coincidence – and she left the classroom feeling like she’d learned nothing, with a migraine for her efforts.

Mary was very relieved to find that she wasn’t miles behind everyone in her House, at least when it came to lessons. Even the purebloods from the Old Families, like Malfoy, Parkinson, and Bulstrode, who had had private tutors before Hogwarts, didn’t seem to have learned much Transfiguration or any of the Charms in their textbooks (though they did know a lot of jinxes and hexes that weren’t in any of the required reading). But she did rather despair when it came to learning all the social niceties and expectations that were par for the course in Slytherin House. And the Truce didn’t really help.

It did stop her from constantly being jinxed by her housemates, maybe. But instead she was shunned by most of them. Lilian, whose family had been neutral in the war, and Blaise, whose mother was Dark, but not on Voldemort’s side, talked to her, as did some of the older students – Morgana Yaxley and her friends – But Tracey Davis, whose mother had been a muggleborn, was trying to get in with Draco Malfoy’s pureblood clique despite her half-blood status, and all of the others had parents or aunts and uncles on Voldemort’s side and had been brought up hating the Girl Who Lived. They mostly ignored Mary, giving her the silent treatment and refusing to work with her in class, since they weren’t allowed to curse her. She was never invited to sit with them in the Common Room or at meals, and when she tried, they glared, silently, at her until she moved away.

Morgana said to pretend it didn’t bother her, since most of them would probably grow out of it when they started hating their parents instead. Mary thought that was good advice, and it was easy enough for the first week. She was much more used to people pretending that she didn’t exist than people staring at her all the time, and she definitely preferred the former. Instead, she spent most of her free time in the library with Hermione, or exploring the Castle with Lilian and her sister, Aerin, or visiting Cammy and Podley in the kitchens and other elf-spaces – the servants’ passages and storage rooms of the school, where students almost never went (though she did run into the Weasley twins in the kitchens once). She had introduced Hermione to Cammy, but neither one of them really seemed to like the other. Hermione thought Cammy was too _subservient_ in her attitudes, and Cammy thought Hermione was rude (which admittedly she was, but only through ignorance).

The Drs. Granger had, indeed, written the girls a letter, which arrived with the very first post on Monday morning (hundreds of owls had streamed into the Great Hall at breakfast, scaring Mary half to death). The girls had written back, and the Grangers had started writing them separate letters after realizing that they were not in the same house, and therefore could not sit together at meals.

Mary had complained while they were writing their first letters back that she had been given homework by her Head of House before classes even started, which led to Hermione studying the Student Handbook with her, and when Mary told her how she always felt out of step with the other Slytherins, Hermione had helped her find etiquette books which explained some of the way she was treated – for one thing, it was apparently presumptuous of her to call everyone by their first names. After Mary reported that Cammy thought Hermione rude, the older girl started studying these as well.

Friday morning, Mary and Lilian had decided to be adventurous and take one of the side passages to the common room instead of the main route. This turned out to be a moderately bad idea, since it resulted in their missing Miss Rowle, their guide to breakfast, by about five minutes. They still managed to make it to the Great Hall with only one wrong turn, which they considered an accomplishment, especially since they realized it before they had gone too far.

Iris, the Grangers’ owl, delivered a small tin of biscuits to the Slytherin table with a note saying, “Congratulations on making it through your first week, Beth!” which Mary thought was very kind of them. She had expected the Grangers to stop sending her things after she confirmed that she was alive, sorted, and settling in well, but they wrote her every time they wrote Hermione. Lilian thought it was very funny that she had apparently been adopted by muggles who weren’t even her family, but she shut up when Mary threatened not to share the biscuits. One of the school owls delivered a grubby, untidily scrawled note from Hagrid, inviting her to tea, and Mary said yes, and invited Lilian to come along, since they would have the afternoon free.

The only class for Slytherin on Friday was Double Potions with the Gryffindors. Hermione had had Potions on Wednesday with the Hufflepuffs, so she had warned Mary to expect Professor Snape to be just as strict as Professor McGonagall, and mean about it. Mary would have expected nothing less from the man who gave a pop quiz on his Welcome-to-the-House speech. By the end of her first Potions lesson on Friday, she could safely say that Professor Snape favored his own house (at least over Gryffindor), expected perfection, and was a scathing bastard when he didn’t get it.

Potions was the only class held in the dungeons. It was cooler than the main castle, and slightly damp. After spending the week living in the Snake Pit, Mary didn’t mind the temperature. The general atmosphere of the class was very creepy, though, because the walls of the classroom were covered with potions ingredients in glass jars, including some that were clearly half-dissected, pickled animals with far too many eyes and not enough limbs.

Professor Snape, like Professor Flitwick, started the class by taking roll, and like Flitwick he paused at Mary’s name. She was afraid he was going to say something, but he left it at a slow, drawn-out, “Miss… Potter,” and she said (like every student before her) “present, sir,” and he moved on. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, sitting at the table behind Mary, Lilian, and Blaise, sniggered at this, though she didn’t know why.

At the end of the roll, Professor Snape looked around the room slowly, meeting each of their eyes, as he began to talk. “You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking,” he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word. Like Professor McGonagall, he had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. “As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic.” Mary was actually having a hard time believing that Astronomy and DADA were really magic. She was certain that Potions would be much better. At least it was a practical lesson.

“I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron,” he continued, “With its shimmering fumes… the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death” That sounded awesome. Mary briefly wondered why Hermione had said he was mean, but then he concluded, “If you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.” She almost laughed. She stopped herself, but heard a muffled snort behind her. Several Gryffindors exchanged looks with raised eyebrows, but none of them made a sound.

“Mr. Malfoy!” said Snape suddenly. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

Malfoy cleared his throat and drawled, “The Draught of Living Death, sir.”

“I see your tutors have taught you well,” the professor said. He didn’t actually sneer, but there was something in the way he said it that made it sound like he thought less of Draco for getting the answer correct. “Miss Dunbar! Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”

A girl on the Gryffindor side of the room flinched, looked around the room quickly, and then said, “Storage cupboard?” and pointed to a large cabinet on the wall. “Sir,” she added belatedly.

The professor raised an eyebrow at her, as though she should have known better than to give him such a flippant answer, but she was technically correct. “Mr. Weasley! What is the difference between Monkshood and Wolfsbane?”

Ron Weasley flushed a bright red that clashed horribly with his hair before he admitted, “I dunno, sir.”

Snape shot him a dismissive look before rounding on Neville. “Mr. Longbottom,” he snapped, “Same question.”

“N-n-nothing, s-s-sir.”

“That is correct,” the potionsmaster said, and Neville sank into his chair with relief. “There is no practical difference between Monkshood and Wolfsbane – both names refer to several poisonous species within the genus Aconitum. And Miss Dunbar, the correct answer to _your_ question was that a bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat. It will save you from most poisons. Well? Why aren’t you all copying this down?”

There was a sudden rummaging for parchment and quills. Over the noise, Snape said, “One point to Slytherin for Mr. Malfoy, and one to Gryffindor for Mr. Longbottom.”

Mary let out a sigh of relief as the Potions Master moved on to lecturing on the Boil Cure Potion. She had known about Monkshood and Wolfsbane – Professor Sprout had mentioned something in their first class about that – but she’d had no idea about the bezoar, and she was pretty sure she had seen wormwood and asphodel in at least three different potions when she was reading through the potions manual, but she couldn’t have said off the top of her head which ones used powders or extracts or anything like that. Hermione might have done, but Mary’s memory simply wasn’t up to memorizing the textbooks.

When he had done telling them about safety precautions and the proper steps of the Boil Cure Potion, Professor Snape put them into pairs and set them to working on it. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy, whose prior experience he seemed to approve of, and Mary, who he seemed to be ignoring, much like the other Slytherins. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. Neville had somehow managed to melt his cauldron into a twisted blob, and the potion he and his partner had been working on was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people’s shoes. Within seconds, all of the nearby students were standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and face.

“Idiot boy!” snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. “I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?”

Neville whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

“You – Finnegan – why didn’t you tell him not to add the quills?” he spat at Neville’s partner. “Two points from Gryffindor for your combined carelessness. Take him to the hospital wing. Second floor to the right of the marble staircase.”

Class ended an hour later. Professor Snape found reasons to take five more points from Gryffindor, and gave Malfoy a second one for his slugs. Mary and Lilian’s potion turned out as the book said it should, and when they turned in their sample at the end of class, Professor Snape declared it an ‘E’. Lilian thanked him and pulled Mary away before she could say anything. She explained on the way back to the Slytherin Common Room that _E_ was for ‘Exceeds Expectations,’ and was the second highest possible grade, above _A_ for ‘Acceptable’ and below _O_ for ‘Outstanding’. Mary thought this probably explained why Hermione had been so irritated that Professor Snape had given her an _A_ on her own first potion.

At quarter of three, Mary and Lilian left the dungeons for Hagrid’s cottage. It was a small wooden house on the edge of the forbidden forest. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes sat outside the front door.

When Mary knocked, they heard a frantic scrabbling from inside and several booming barks. Then Hagrid’s voice rang out, saying, “Back, Fang! Back.”

Hagrid’s big, hairy face appeared in the crack as he pulled the door open.

“Hang on,” he said. “Back, Fang.”

He let them in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound. The house looked just the same as it had the last time she had come for tea: a single room with a massive bed in the corner, cured hams and pheasants hanging from the ceiling, and a copper kettle boiling on the open fire.

“Make yourselves at home,” said Hagrid, letting go of Fang, who bounded straight at Lilian and started licking her ears. Like Hagrid, fang was clearly not as fierce as he looked.

“Sorry about ‘im,” Hagrid apologized, turning from filling the teapot to see Lilian pinned to the ground with Fang’s front paws on her shoulders, and Mary trying in vain to pull him off.

“It’s okay,” Lilian assured him as she got back to her feet. “My family raises Black Dogs. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been flattened by a Cu Sith or Barghest pup,” she explained, scratching Fang’s ears as Hagrid held his collar again. “Where’d you get this lovely boy?”

“Found ‘im last week, jes wanderin’ the streets of Hogsmeade. ‘e followed me home. I couldna’ turn him away.”

“Hmmm. He’s not a magical breed,” said Lilian, then snapped her fingers in front of Fang’s nose and said, “Sit!” sharply. Fang lunged at her again, and tried to lick her face. “Sido!” Nothing. “Sadit’sya!” Fang’s tongue lolled out of his mouth. “Sitz dich!” The dog sat.

“Platz!” Fang lay down obediently, looking at Lilian as though she had betrayed him deeply by refusing his love. “Gute Hundchen!” she said, and Fang scrambled back to his feet to lean against Lilian’s side. “He knows German muggle commands,” she told Hagrid, who was looking at her as though he wanted to hug her. “I can write them down for you, if you want.”

“Yeah, tha’d be great. Been havin’ an ‘ell of a time getting ‘im to follow my lead and all. Thanks, miss…”

Lilian had only briefly met Hagrid on their way from Hogsmeade station to the Castle, so Mary introduced them properly, rather belatedly.

“Not Aerin Moon’s little sister?”

Lilian nodded happily. “You know Aerin?”

“’Course I do! Spent half the last year chasin’ her an’ them Weasley twins out o’ the forest, din’t I?”

Lilian laughed. “That sounds like Aerin. She loves wild creatures. Probably looking for Runespoors or something.”

Hagrid harrumphed, and went back to plating up rock cakes (which Mary recalled being somewhat more rocklike than cakelike) and brewing tea, muttering all the while about little girls wandering off into the forest. Mary and Lilian told Hagrid all about their first classes and their yearmates, and Hagrid asked them how they liked being in Slytherin. He assured Mary that her parents would have been proud of her no matter what, which was kind of him, but really unnecessary. It didn’t matter to Mary even a little bit that her parents had both been in Gryffindor.

Mary looked at a paper while Lilian taught Hagrid the German commands to control Fang. The front page was about the Gringotts’ break-in, which still hadn’t been solved. There was no new news, so they were just reporting the same details again. The break-in had been on her birthday, the last day of July, but they hadn’t realized it, or maybe just hadn’t started reporting it until almost a month later. She rolled her eyes at the whole affair. Honestly, what kind of incompetent criminal breaks into a highly secure vault with _nothing in it_.

Eventually Lilian decided that Hagrid’s pronunciation was good enough, and they headed back to the castle, giggling about Hagrid’s cooking skills, and debating whether they should try to get Aerin and the Weasley twins to take them exploring in the Forbidden Forest. After all, it couldn’t be _that_ dangerous if they had done it, could it?


	10. Chapter 9: Snake Pranks

###  September 1991

#### Hogwarts

##### Mary

Mary had never believed that she would meet a boy she hated more than Dudley, but that was before she met Draco Malfoy. Not only was he just as spoiled and whiny as Dudley, she was convinced that it was he who had started the rash of bullying and pranks that began in her second week at Hogwarts. He wasn’t the only one who participated, of course. Almost all of the first and second-years did, and even some of the older students. But she was certain it was him, behind it all.

It had started small, their spat. On Sunday afternoon, while she and Hermione and Lilian were working on their first week’s homework in the Library, Draco had come up to them (flanked by Crabbe and Goyle, as always) and said something insulting about Hermione. He could see why Mary and Lilian kept her around – even …muggle scum… (he’d had to think for a moment to find an equally insulting word that wasn’t _mudblood_ ) could be useful if _it_ would do their homework for them.

Hermione, of course, had insulted him right back, in a hissing whisper that didn’t get her kicked out of the library. Then Draco tried to hex her and she ducked under the table, and Madam Pince had thrown the boys out before things could go any further. Mary and Lilian had decided (well, Lilian had decided and convinced Mary), later, that it was _nearly_ as much an insult to them as to Hermione, implying that they needed a kept Ravenclaw to do their work for them. So they needed to get revenge… somehow.

An opportunity presented itself in the form of their upcoming first-ever flying lesson. The Gryffindors and Slytherins had flying lessons together, every other Friday afternoon. All the first-years had been buzzing about the upcoming lesson since it was added to their schedules Monday morning. Draco, in particular, had been bragging about all the time he’d spent on a broom, and telling long, boastful stories that always seemed to end with him narrowly escaping Muggles in helicopters.

Mary was somewhat surprised that Draco even knew what a helicopter was, and pointed this out to Lilian, who promptly started a rumor in Slytherin that Draco secretly liked muggle action films. He denied it, of course, and started a counter-rumor that Lilian was a muggle-lover. Lilian raised a graceful eyebrow and told Pansy Parkinson (who confronted her about it in the Common Room Wednesday evening) that she didn’t _hate_ muggles, and in the words of one of her favorites, perhaps dear Draco didst protest too much, which only made him angrier.

Thus, going into the flying lesson, Mary and Lilian were somewhat ahead of Draco in their quiet little battle of insults and rumors. The flying lesson itself represented what Hermione later called a major point of escalation.

Most of the purebloods, especially those who lived out in the country, had flown before, and had flying stories similar to Draco’s, though they were much more believable. Ron Weasley, for example, said he almost hit a muggle in a giant kite once, which Hermione said had to be a hang-glider. Surprisingly (or perhaps not, given the number of accidents Mary had witnessed in the Great Hall and Potions), Neville Longbottom had never been on a broom at all. Tracy Davis and Millicent Bulstrode lived in London proper, so they couldn’t really fly very far without _actually_ being seen by Muggles, and had never gotten much practice, but at least they had tried it before. Lilian said that she had been flying since she was about four. The Moons lived near Exmoor, and her father had taught all of the kids to fly in more isolated areas of the park, where no Muggles were likely to see them. Hermione had obviously never flown, nor had Dean Thomas or Justin Finch-Fletchley.

Mary was excited: She had flown for the first time over the summer and was very much looking forward to doing it again. She spent two whole days being jealous of Hermione, who had her first lesson on Wednesday morning. Hermione (who had been very nervous beforehand and spent all of Monday and Tuesday looking up flying tips in the library) had said that it was a bit scary, and she hadn’t dared to go too high, but that it had been alright. Mary had scoffed at Hermione for being such a scaredy cat, and went into a bit of a rhapsody over her one and only solo flight, which she considered her best memory to date.

At breakfast on Thursday, Neville’s grandmother sent him a Remembrall. Draco, whom Mary and Lilian had been keeping a close eye on after the incident between Lilian and Pansy in the Common Room the evening before, tried to steal it, or break it or something, but Professor McGonagall intervened before he could do anything. The girls were too far away to hear exactly what was said, but Draco dropped the glass sphere onto the Gryffindor table with a thunk, and sloped away, Crabbe and Goyle following (slightly menacingly) in his wake.

Finally, the appointed time arrived, and the Slytherins made their way out to the Quidditch pitch for their first flying lesson. Nineteen brooms were laid out and waiting by the time they arrived, but the Gryffindors were nowhere in sight. They waited quietly, whispering about Quidditch and flying stories, and looking around the pitch and under the stands at the lawns and the Forest, which was swaying darkly in the breeze.

The Gryffindors arrived, and Madam Hooch appeared a moment later. Her hair was shorter than the last time Mary had seen her, and spiky. With her yellowish eyes, it made her look like some kind of bird of prey.

“Well, what are you all waiting for?” she barked. “Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up.”

There were two rows of brooms, one of nine and the other ten. There were eleven Slytherins, so there was a bit of a scuffle and power play as they sorted themselves out along the longer row, no one wanting to have to go stand by the Gryffindors or admit defeat by moving a broom to the Slytherin row. Mary secured a spot between Lilian and Blaise, opposite the Gryffindor Patil twin. Tracy ended up having to stand next to Ron Weasley, at the end of the Gryffindor row.

“Stick out your right hand over your broom,” called Madam Hooch at the front, “and say ‘Up!’”

“Up!” everyone shouted.

Mary’s broom jumped into her hand at once, but it was one of the few that did. Lilian’s hadn’t moved at all, and Blaise’s had gotten about halfway to his hand, and then kind of wandered off course and floated at his knee. Mary heard Lilian grumble something about ancient piece-of-crap school brooms, before she snapped her fingers at it and snapped “Broom! Up!” again, like she was commanding Fang. This time it obeyed.

Once everyone had their brooms in hand, Madam Hooch showed them how to mount without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. Mary and Lilian shared a smile when they heard Malfoy whining about how “my father says…” Madam Hooch simply informed him (loudly enough for everyone else to hear) that he had been doing it wrong for years, then.

“Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard,” said Madam Hooch. “Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle. Three… Two…”

But Neville, nervous and jumpy and probably frightened of being left behind, pushed off hard _before_ the whistle… And then he couldn’t stop.

“Come back, boy!” the instructor shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle… twelve feet… twenty feet. Mary saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and…

WHAM. A thud and a nasty crack, and Neville lay facedown on the grass in a heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started to drift lazily toward the Forbidden Forest and out of sight.

Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his.

“Broken wrist,” Mary heard her mutter. “Come on, boy, it’s all right. Up you get.”

She turned to the rest of the class.

“None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are, or you’ll be out of Hogwarts before you can say ‘Quidditch.’ Come on, dear.”

Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.

No sooner were they out of earshot than Malfoy burst into laughter.

“Did you see his face, the great lump?”

The rest of Malfoy’s little clique joined in. Even Lilian was laughing. Mary gave her a reproachful look. It was cruel to make fun of Neville like that. And broken wrists _hurt_.

“What?” asked Lilian “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Mary moved closer to her. No one else was standing by their brooms anymore. “It just seems… mean, is all,” she said.

(“Shut up, Malfoy,” snapped the Patil twin who had been across from Mary.)

“Oh, Mary… It’s just… well, you might not have noticed, I guess, but wizards are a lot more durable than muggles,” she explained quietly. “I mean, look at Quidditch. Bludgers would kill a muggle, probably. But magic protects you, unless you’re too scared. I mean, you don’t really get hurt a lot of the time, if you don’t believe you can get hurt.”

(“Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?” said Pansy. “Never thought you’d like fat little crybabies, Parvati.”)

“So? He broke his wrist. It’s not funny.”

“No,” the taller girl said with another giggle. “The _funny_ part is that Longbottom _should_ know that, and he got hurt _anyway._ It’s kind of pathetic, you have to admit.”

Mary crossed her arms and said nothing. It _was_ pathetic, when Lilian put it that way, but she didn’t think pathetic things were particularly funny, either. She turned her attention to the fight developing between Draco, Pansy, and the Gryffindors. Draco had just grabbed something shiny from the ground.

“Look! It’s that stupid thing Longbottom’s gran sent him.”

“Give that back, Malfoy!” Ron shouted, his face nearly as red as his hair.

Malfoy smiled nastily. “I think I’ll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find… how about… up a tree?”

“Give it here!” Dean yelled, standing up next to Ron, but Malfoy had leapt onto his broom and taken off. He hadn’t been lying. He did know how to fly. Hovering twenty feet off the ground, he called, “Come and get it, Weasel!”

Mary had been biting her lip indecisively, but she thought that this had gone far enough. “No, don’t,” she said to Ron, who was about to kick off from the ground. “I’ll talk to him.” She grabbed her own broom, ignoring Lilian’s whispered “What are you doing?” and kicked off herself.

It was just as wonderful as it had been the first time. Air rushed past her, through her hair, whipping her robes out behind her. She felt a rush of joy as she pulled her broom up level with Draco’s. He looked stunned.

“Give it over,” she said, quietly enough that the people on the ground couldn’t hear. “You’re just going to get Slytherin in trouble.”

“What do you know, Potter?” Malfoy shouted at her. He shot away across the Quidditch pitch. She followed him.

“I know you’re going to get caught. It doesn’t take that long to get back from the hospital wing. And the Gryffindors are definitely going to tell on you.”

“So what if they do?” Draco called out, tauntingly.

Mary thought for a moment, then shrugged. She couldn’t think of anything else to do, but at least she could say she had tried to stop him. Maybe all of Slytherin wouldn’t get punished, just Malfoy. That would be fine. “Guess it’s your problem, then,” she finally responded in a resigned tone, and headed back to the other students.

“Did you get it?” Ron demanded as soon as she was back on the ground.

Malfoy was still hovering, closer now, so that he could hear what was going on. “No,” she said, “I tried, but he wouldn’t give it back.”

Pansy laughed at her, and Millicent and Tracy followed suit. Lilian was still looking at her like she had done something incredibly stupid, while Daphne talked to Blaise and Theo. The three of them apparently ignored the situation, but Mary was sure they were really paying attention. Vinnie and Greg were debating quietly whether they should do anything or if Draco would want to do whatever this was alone.

Ron growled and mounted his own broom. Draco backed away suddenly as Ron rose into the air, then grinned brightly and started leading the red-headed Gryffindor on a merry chase around the nearer set of goal-hoops. Mary supposed he was pleased to be the center of attention. She quietly explained what had happened to Lilian, and that she had done it because she didn’t want Slytherin to get in trouble.

Draco and Ron were still up by the goal-hoops playing follow-the-leader when Madam Hooch reappeared on the scene, blowing her whistle shrilly and shouting about points and what the bloody hell had they thought they were doing.

The Slytherins remained silent, volunteering nothing (because nothing they could say would help), while the Gryffindors went to explain what had happened in a babble of voices, and eventually, what became clear was this: Malfoy had taken Neville’s Remembrall and flown off with it. Potter tried to get it back and failed. Weasley was just trying to do the right thing for his friend.

Conveniently enough, no one mentioned that Mary had also been on a broom, though she didn’t know if that was because the Gryffindors thought it was obvious that she must have been, or they didn’t think she deserved to be in trouble for trying to get her stupid housemate to give back the damned trinket. Perhaps it was a bit of each, she thought, looking around at them.

When Malfoy finally got back to the ground and found all of the Slytherins blaming him alone for losing them twenty house points, and none of them scorning Mary for trying to protect ickle Longbottom’s property, he was fuming. Mary was sure her smug look didn’t help, but she had told him so.

 _That_ was why she was certain that Malfoy was behind the “pranks” that started that very evening.

The first was a jinx which hit her in the back as she left the Great Hall after dinner, and made her unable to speak for the rest of the evening, as Lilian didn’t know the counter-jinx, and Morgana and her friends weren’t around to help.

On Saturday, someone swapped her soap with a trick bar of soap that turned into tadpoles when she got it wet.

On Sunday, she went through half the day before Hermione pointed out that someone had made the Slytherin crest on her robes read “Shithead” instead of Slytherin, and then at dinner someone had hit her with a Tripping Jinx, which threw her into Marcus Flint, the Quidditch captain. He shoved her away, and she fell to the ground, hard, in front of the entire school. Flint got a couple of glares for treading on the edge of House Rule No. 1, but since she was a clumsy first-year and not really a fully accepted member of the House, and he was an upperclassman Quidditch star, no one actually said anything.

On Monday when she walked into the Hall for breakfast, her robes were charmed or hexed or _something_ to start shedding glitter everywhere, and she had to go change, which made her late for her first class.

On Tuesday, she received a Howler, an awful red envelope enchanted to scream at her. Several people had obviously shouted into it at the same time, since it wasn’t any recognizable voice, but just an embarrassing, attention-drawing cacophony of angry, taunting sounds. At lunch, Derrick Bole had distracted her while someone slipped a potion into her drink that had her hallucinating all through afternoon lessons. That was when she realized that the upperclassmen were involved.

On Wednesday, she was caught by another Tripping Jinx, this one right at the top of the second-floor main staircase, between classes. If an older Hufflepuff boy hadn’t caught her, she would have done a header right down them. _That_ was when she realized that this was dangerous, and that she had to do something about it. Later, away from the noise of the corridors between classes, she realized that someone had put a charm on her boots so that they _meowed_ whenever she took a step, which was just so absurd that she started laughing and couldn’t stop. Lilian thought she had lost her mind, because the counter to the Giggling Jinx wasn’t working, and that only made Mary laugh harder. Professor Flitwick came across them in the hall, and sent Mary to the hospital wing. It turned out that she had been hit with a Hysteria Hex, an insidious Dark arts spell that waited until the victim started laughing, and then prevented them from stopping, before inspiring tears and then irrational fear. She realized that night that she probably should have done something about it when it was just Draco – now everyone was seeing her as a victim. Whatever she did in revenge had to be _impressive_ and _public_ , or they wouldn’t stop now.

On Thursday, it seemed she couldn’t go more than a few steps between classes without being hit by a Pinching Jinx or something that made it feel like her wand hand was being stung by bees. Someone slipped a truth serum into her drink at dinner, which compelled her to answer a series of ever-more-embarrassing questions about herself in the Common Room until she ran off into the tunnels. Lilian found her eventually, and cast a Tongue-Tying Jinx on her, so that she could stop talking. Lilian reported that Hermione had told her that she had seen second and third-year Slytherins in the library looking up jinxes and giggling about getting the better of her because she clearly shouldn’t be a Slytherin at all. And then it came to her. She found a piece of scrap parchment and wrote as boldly as she could: **That is it. This is war. I have a plan. We need a snake. Tomorrow night, forbidden forest.** Lilian looked concerned, and had asked why she needed a snake, but Mary wouldn’t write it down, and in the end she had just nodded.

On Friday, Lilian had asked her if she had been serious about going into the Forbidden Forest to look for a snake. Her head was pounding and fuzzy from the truth serum, but she said yes, she most definitely was serious. That this was going to stop, and it was going to stop _now_. Lilian had given her the grin she always had when they were talking about doing something mischievous. She had been wanting to go explore the forest since Hagrid had mentioned it the week before.

“Good,” she had said, “I think we should leave around eleven thirty. The tunnels will be dark, and the Common Room is usually empty by then.”

Mary had nodded grimly and continued through her day. No one tried anything in Potions, with Snape watching, but afterward, she discovered that someone had slipped a fragile bottle of something slimy into her bag. It cracked when she set it down too hard that evening in the library, and turned her hands into a painful, warty mess when she tried to save her half-completed homework assignments. Hermione had looked terribly worried. They hadn’t had much time to spend together all week, with Mary dodging her housemates and trying to avoid their pranks. She walked with her to the Hospital Wing to have her hands fixed, but had reluctantly left when Madam Pomfrey announced that Mary would have to sit with her hands in some sort of potion for the next three hours.

* * *

It was nearly ten by the time Mary was able to return to the Slytherin Common Room. Madam Pomfrey had Vanished all of the Bubotuber Pus, which was what the awful stuff was called, from her bag and books (which must have had some kind of repelling charm on them, because they weren’t harmed), but there had been nothing she could do to repair Mary’s all-but-finished History essay, or her half-completed Transfiguration assignment. She spent the next hour and a half re-writing the papers, and made a note to learn whatever charm protected her books.

At eleven-thirty, there was a soft knock on her door. She made Lilian wait while she changed into her darkest underclothes, including one of the long-sleeved “shirtwaists” and put her boots back on. She tied her hair back and threw her cloak around her shoulders, though she thought she probably would take it off before they entered the Forest, even if it was cold out. Exploring a dangerous Forest at night with what amounted to a blanket tied around her neck seemed like a terrible idea.

Lilian went back for her cloak as well, and they put up their hoods, slipping anonymously through the tunnels and the Slytherin Common Room, which was not deserted, but at least no one seemed to recognize them, or care that they were sneaking out.

“Alright,” said Lilian as they climbed the first staircase out of the dungeons, “What are we doing? Not that I have a problem with going exploring outside in the middle of the night, but why do you need a snake?”

“Do you know why the Slytherin House mascot is a snake?”

“Because snakes are calculating and cold-blooded, just like Slytherins?” suggested Lilian.

“No. Well, maybe. But Hermione said it’s because Salazar Slytherin was a parselmouth. He could talk to snakes.”

“Really? Wicked. But so what?”

“ _So_ it’s a really rare talent, right? Like not many people outside of the Slytherin family ever had it.”

“Mkay… Liz, what’s your point, here?”

“Shhhhh!” They were coming up on a cross-corridor. Mary poked her head around it, then waved Lilian forward. “No names. We’re being _sneaky_ , remember?”

Lilian shrugged. “Fine, what’s your plan, though?”

Mary swallowed hard. “All of these pranks are because the rest of them think I don’t belong here, right? Well, I’m going to prove that I do. And scare the crap out of Malfoy along the way.” The professor had said it would be a bad idea to tell anyone, but she couldn’t think of anything else she could do to prove that she belonged in Slytherin more. And it was only fair that it not come as a shock when they _did_ find a snake. “I’m a parselmouth, Lils.”

“WHAT?!”

“SHHHHH!” Mary hushed her friend almost as loud as her initial outburst. They were in the Entrance Hall. She pulled the taller witch into an alcove.

“Sorry.” Lilian didn’t look sorry at all. “I mean, _what?_ Are you freaking kidding me? The Girl Who Lived is an evil, Dark witch?”

“No! I’m not!” Mary wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t be a Dark witch someday, but she thought it was a bit premature to say that she was one when she’d only started learning magic two weeks ago. And she was sure she wasn’t evil. “And don’t call me that,” she added belatedly.

“It’s okay if you are, you know,” Lilian said with her usual cheeky grin, waving away the last comment. “You can admit it. It’s not like you’re a Dark Gryffindor or,” she giggled, “a Dark _Hufflepuff_.”

Mary couldn’t help it: she giggled at that too. Hufflepuffs were just too damn _nice_ to be Dark. “I’m not though. I just think that I should make some sort of move that shows everyone that I’m not the perfect little Light girl they’re making me out to be.”

Lilian nodded. “Neutral’s a good place to be. My family – what was that?”

“What was what?”

“Shut up. I thought I heard something.”

And then Mary heard it too – the scratch of too-long claws on flagstone and the slightly snuffling sound of Mrs. Norris. The cat poked her head around the edge of their alcove, yellow eyes glowing in the faint light of their wands.

“Shit! _Nox!_ Come on,” Lilian said, grabbing Mary by the hand. “We have to go. Filch will be here any second!” No sooner had she said that than they heard his wheezing, coming from the direction of the Great Hall, between them and the entrance to the dungeons. The only other way out was up the marble staircase. They ran for it.

They tore up one staircase and then another, ripped aside a tapestry and threw themselves down a secret passage. At one point they were in the trophy hall, gently lit and glittering, but they didn’t linger, as they heard that damned cat yowling behind them.

They dipped out the door opposite the one they had come in through, and found themselves near the secret passage the Weasleys had used to escape Filch the week before. They ducked into it, and immediately found themselves falling down a chute into a room which seemed to have no purpose at all except to catch people. It was full of pillows and little plastic balls. They waded to a ladder on the other side of it, and climbed and climbed, coming through a trap-door somewhere near the Transfiguration classroom, which was on the fifth floor.

They couldn’t stop, though, because Filch had followed the Weasleys, and doubtless knew where they would have to end up. They circled around and found a down-staircase in the opposite wing of the castle. It started moving while they were on it, and they ended up in a completely unfamiliar part of the fourth floor. _Probably the fourth floor_ , Mary amended to herself, considering the way that floors seemed to work in this damned castle. They found another secret passage with a rickety spiral stair (and a vanishing step halfway down, which Lilian had to pull Mary out of), and came out of it, with the worst luck in the world, right next to Peeves.

He gave a squeal of delight. “Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you’ll get caughty,” he added over their panting and pleas for silence.

“You don’t need to do this, Peeves, please,” Mary tried one last time, but he gave her an evil grin and held three fingers in the air.

“STUDENTS OUT OF BED!” he bellowed. “STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!” and he floated through a wall cackling as they ran all the way to the opposite end of the hall, where they slammed into a door.

It was locked.

“Fuck!” Mary cursed, and turned to look for another door.

“Hang on,” said Lilian, pushing Mary out of the way. She tapped the lock and whispered, “ _Alohomora_!”

The lock clicked and the door swung open. The girls slipped through it, shut it quickly, and pressed their ears against it, listening.

“Which way did they go, Peeves?” Filch was saying. Peeves must have poked his head back through the wall. “Quick, tell me!”

“Say please.”

“Don’t mess with me Peeves, where did they go?”

“Shan’t say nothing if you don’t say please,” the poltergeist said in his most annoying, sing-song voice.

“All right. _Please_ ,” said Filch. It sounded like it hurt.

“NOTHING! Told you so, I told you so… shan’t say _nothing_ if you don’t say please…” And they heard Peeves’ cackling moving away, and the sound of Filch cursing in rage.

“He thinks this room’s locked,” whispered Lilian. “If we’re quiet, he’ll go away. What’s wrong, why are you shaking me?”

Mary just pointed. They weren’t in a _room_ , they were in a _corridor_. The _forbidden_ corridor. And now they knew _why_ it was forbidden – there was a monstrous dog in the corridor with them, filling the entire space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs.

It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and Mary just _knew_ that the only reason they weren’t dead already was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise. It started growling, and she fumbled for the doorknob. Between Filch and death, she’d take Filch.

“Don’t… move…” Lilian said quietly. Mary froze. Did she know what this thing was? “Just try to hum along, or be quiet. And still.”

Mary stared at her in utter disbelief. And then Lilian started to sing:

“O, She look’d out of the window,  
As white as summer’s light,  
He look’d in at her and grinned,  
‘Is heart as black as night.  
Hulloa, hulloa, hulloa, she called,  
Hulloa, my night-black Lord!  
You’ve done me no harm, but I love you not,  
And ne’er you shall I wed.  
I’d rather die a maid, she said,  
Than go with you, my Lord!”

The dog’s eyes began to blink heavily, its heads weaving from side to side. Lilian kept singing:

“Then she became a duck,  
Her feathers fair and white  
And he became a water dog  
And fetched her back despite.  
Oh no, oh no, oh no, she cried,  
Oh no, my Lord of Dark!  
You’ve done me no harm, but I love you not,  
And ne’er you shall I wed.  
I’d rather die a maid, she said,  
Than go with you, my Lord!”

Mary was humming along. It was a jaunty tune. If she hadn’t been so scared, she might have tried to dance. The dog, apparently, didn’t think so, though, as it had laid down, and was clearly getting sleepy.

“Then she became a golden hare,  
A-running on the plain  
And he a greyhound dog became  
And fetched her back again.  
Oh no, oh no, oh no, she laughed,  
Oh no, my cold-heart Lord!  
You’ve done me no harm, but I love you not,  
And ne’er you shall I wed.  
I’d rather die a maid, she said,  
Than go with you, my Lord!”

The dog had finally closed its eyes (all six of them), and even its ears had stopped twitching in time with the song. “Come on,” Lilian whispered. She turned the doorknob carefully and re-locked it behind them.

“What the _hell_ was that?” Mary hissed as they made their way back to the dungeons.

“It’s a cerberus. They’re used as guard dogs, mostly,” Lilian whispered back with a grin. “I mean, they’re not very _good_ guard dogs, since anyone who can carry a tune can get past one, but they _look_ really impressive.”

Mary considered this as they sneaked through the Entrance Hall, and decided she had nothing else to say on the topic of guard dogs. “I thought we were going to die. What was that song?”

“It’s called the Lady and the Dog. He’s a Dark Lord, she’s a White witch. He woos her and convinces her to love him. There’s another verse where she turns into a dove and he a bird dog, and she says he’s ‘proved his love through trials three’… And then there’s _another_ verse where he deflowers her, and she says that since she can’t die a maid, she might as well go with him, but my mum didn’t teach me that verse,” she said virtuously. Mary snorted and Lilian smirked.

Then Mary sighed. “We’ll have to try again another night,” she said. “Since we didn’t get… what we were looking for.”

“I’ll ask Aerin to come. She probably knows a sneaky way out of the Castle.”

“Good idea. Maybe…next Friday, I guess. Or Saturday. I don’t think I can do this two nights in a row,” she yawned.

“Me either.” Lilian whispered the password and they slipped silently through the now-empty Common Room and back through the tunnels.

* * *

The next day at lunch, Lilian travelled back and forth between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables, speaking quietly with her sister, then with Mary, and then her sister again. Her older brother raised a warning eyebrow in her direction, but she brushed off his interest with a wave and her usual cheeky smile. Nothing horrible had happened yet, but then, Mary had only been out of her well-warded dorm room for about half an hour.

“Mary,” she whispered, though the table was nowhere near full, and no one was nearby. “Aerin asks if there’s a specific reason you wanted to go at _night_.”

“Because,” Mary replied, “I don’t want anyone to know what we’re up to. I have to take them by surprise for this to work.”

Lilian ran off again. While she was gone, two things happened. Miles Bletchley, an older Slytherin, started skulking nearer to Mary, and a small school owl delivered a note to her. She opened the note, keeping watch on Bletchley out of the corner of her eye.

_Your required monthly new-student meeting with your Head of House is scheduled for 2:30 pm today. Do not be late._

_Prof. Snape_

Mary had entirely forgotten that this meeting was to take place. She made a mental note of it (again) as Lilian returned, her face somewhat pink.

“Aerin says, and I quote, ‘For Slytherins you seem to lack a certain degree of common sense. It’s less suspicious to wander around the grounds this afternoon than it is to sneak out, and it’s harder for anyone to follow you outside.’”

Mary flushed at this herself, but said, “This afternoon’s no good,” and showed Lilian the note.

“I got one too, but my meeting’s earlier. Quarter past one. What about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow should work, I guess. I was going to spend the afternoon in the Library with Hermione.”

“I’ll ask her if she wants to come too!” And Lilian vanished before Mary could say ‘wait’.

Miles Bletchley, now only ten feet away, and strategically located behind a knot of Gryffindors, sent an ice-blue spell flying at Mary, but she had been watching for it, and dodged, leaving the spell to continue along its path and hit a fourth-year a few places down the table. He looked around angrily, and started shouting at the Gryffindors. Mary decided it was a good time to leave.

Lilian caught up as Mary was sidling out of the Great Hall. Aerin had agreed to meet them after lunch the next day, and Hermione had said they oughtn’t go exploring the Forbidden Forest at all, but if they had to, she certainly wasn’t going to go with them. Mary gave a sigh of relief when she realized that Lilian hadn’t mentioned _why_ they wanted to go into the Forest, and accompanied her friend to Professor Snape’s office. Someone caught her with another Pinching Jinx as she retreated to her bedroom, and a Hair Vanishing Hex on her way to Snape’s office for her own meeting. She glared around the Common Room when that happened, but all it gained her were a few barbed comments from the other first- (and second-) year girls.

She spun around on her heel, which made her robes do impressively swishy things, and strode out of the room, completely hairless. It wasn’t as though she had time to get the hex reversed, at this point.

She arrived at Snape’s office a bare minute early. The door was not latched, so she knocked and entered when bid. The potions master raised a questioning eyebrow at her lack of hair. She tried to do the same, but her eyebrows had vanished. She glared mutinously instead.

“Miss Potter. Have a seat.”

Mary sat. “Professor Snape,” she greeted her Head of House with a polite nod, apparently ignoring the fact that her shoulder-length curls had suddenly ceased to exist.

The professor looked like he was trying hard not to smile, which only made Mary angrier. She looked down. It was the only way, sometimes, to keep her temper. “Miss Potter, the purpose of these meetings is that any new student may ask questions or discuss any… problems… they may encounter over the course of their first term.”

Mary nodded again, and volunteered nothing. Professor Snape sighed. Even his sighs sounded snide and sarcastic. Mary wondered how he managed that. “How are your classes progressing thusfar, Miss Potter?”

“Quite well, thank you, professor.”

“Would you care to elaborate, Miss Potter?”

“Not particularly, professor.” At that Professor Snape actually _did_ smile (well, smirk), but she kept her eyes down.

“I have had nothing but good reports from my fellow staff members.” Was it Mary’s imagination, or did Snape sound somewhat disappointed about that?

He waited another long moment, then said, “I understand you have had some trouble fitting in within Slytherin House.”

Mary couldn’t help it – a small noise, somewhere between a snort and a laugh escaped. “You could say that, sir. But I have it under control.”

“Miss Potter,” Snape sounded a bit irritated now, “I will not stand for bullying within my house. Miss Moon informs me that you were nearly sent head-first down the Main Stair on Wednesday, and that you have not gone a single day this week without the occurrence of at least one embarrassing or harmful incident.”

“Lilian needs to learn to keep her mouth shut, sir.”

“Be that as it may, I do recall specifically informing you that should hazing within the house become an issue of bullying, you were to come to me that I could deal with the situation appropriately.”

“No!” Mary said sharply, forgetting herself. “Sir,” she added belatedly under the force of his dark glare.

“Explain yourself, Miss Potter.”

“It’s not… This is nothing, sir. They haven’t done anything permanently harmful. You said that if _we_ felt we were being bullied, or someone was breaking the Truce, we should come to you but, well…

“Yes, Miss Potter?”

“If they’re doing this because I’m the Girl Who Lived,” she thought she caught a hint of a genuine smile, quickly concealed, at the disgust with which she said the title, “That’s breaking the Truce, and the penalty for them breaking the truce is that I can get them back, right?”

Snape hesitated for a moment. “That is correct, after a manner of speaking. More accurately, if one breaks the Truce _in public_ , they are punished by _everyone_ for breaking it.”

“Yes, sir. I understand. But I am allowed to get back at them, as long as no one outside of Slytherin knows, right, sir?”

Snape stared at her for a long moment, his black eyes catching and holding her bright green ones. Then he nodded.

“Then I’ll take care of it myself, sir.”

“You simply prefer not to ask for help, Miss Potter?”

“No, sir,” she said with a quick smile, “It’s just… well… they’ll never respect me if I go running to you for protection, will they? It will only get worse, and sneakier. Besides, I’m used to looking out for myself.”

Snape looked like she had just hit him in the face with something heavy. She couldn’t possibly know that her words echoed his own speech to Professor Slughorn in his first new student meeting. After a long moment, apparently lost in thought, he nodded again. “Indeed.” He made a few marks on a piece of parchment, then asked, “Do you have any questions or concerns you would like to discuss?”

Mary bit her lip for a moment, then decided that it was worth it. “I do have one question, sir.”

“Ask, Miss Potter,” Snape said, somewhat impatiently.

“Why is there a Cerberus on the third floor? And why can you get through its door with a first-year charm?”

Snape pressed his thumb and a finger to the bridge of his nose, dramatically. This was, apparently, not the concern he was expecting. “The Headmaster has his reasons, Miss Potter. I suggest you recall that you were warned to stay away from that corridor and do as you were instructed. Is there anything else?”

“No, sir,” said Mary, somewhat disappointed that her question had not been answered properly.

“Until next month, then, Miss Potter.”

“Professor Snape.” Mary nodded farewell, and stood to leave.

“Miss Potter,” he called as she laid her hand on the doorknob. “Consider carefully before you make your move, lest you escalate your conflict past the point of violence you are willing and able to maintain.”

Mary turned around and met the cold eyes of her Head of House. “Professor Snape,” she said, seriously, “It’s not going to be like that. I’m going to _end_ it. They don’t believe I belong in this House. I will show them otherwise. That’s all.” She smiled brightly and let herself out of the office.

Daphne Greengrass, when she arrived five minutes later for her own meeting, thought that Professor Snape looked rather troubled.

* * *

The second attempt to acquire a snake (temporarily, and not at all as a pet) had gone more smoothly than the first. Mary had begged Morgana to remove the Hex on her hair, and it had started to re-grow itself over night (her eyebrows were intact, but her hair itself was only about two inches long, and ferociously curly about it). Aerin, Mary, and Lilian left the Castle through the open front door and took a walk around the Lake and out to the Quidditch pitch before they managed to lose the three second-year Slytherins who followed them out, though they had rather quickly managed to gain enough distance that it was safe to talk.

After a short lecture on the most effective ways to avoid the notice of one’s peers and enemies (Aerin’s first love might be learning, but she did grow up in a very Slytherin family, and her second love was teaching), Aerin finally asked why, exactly they were going to the Forest. Her reaction on hearing that Mary was a parselmouth had been almost exactly the same as Lilian’s. Mary explained her plan in greater detail, and the older girl grinned. She knew the perfect snake for the job. She led the first-years to a place just inside the boundaries of the Forest, about halfway between the Senior Woods and Hagrid’s Cabin, where she had come across a mated pair of Cleo’s Asps the year before.

Cleo’s Asps, Aerin explained, were a magical species bred in the early first century for the last Pharaoh of Egypt. They were by now widespread throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, and had come over to England with one of the Roman invasions. They were very venomous, but not very aggressive, and, like all magical creatures, more intelligent than their non-magical counterparts. They were recognized by their dark bodies and lighter markings like a double row of offset triangles or rectangles running down the length of their bodies. The most important thing about them was that their major magical property was a complete _immunity_ to external magic. Wards couldn’t keep them out, and spells cast on them had no effect. Even the Killing Curse was ineffective, because as sentient but not sapient creatures, they had no soul for the Curse to strike at. They could, of course, be killed by muggle means, but Aerin thought they were one of the few dangerous creatures that Mary stood a chance of bringing into the Castle at all.

Mary thought they sounded amazing. She couldn’t wait to meet them. The three girls wandered slowly through the outskirts of the Forest, Mary calling greetings in Parseltongue (she found that she had to keep her mind firmly on snakes to speak it) while Lilian and Aerin discussed the Cerberus on the third floor, and why it might be there. They did not come to a conclusion, though Aerin resolved to check on it as soon as possible. After all, guard dog or not, a Cerberus was simply too large to be confined to a single corridor indefinitely. After almost an hour of walking around the forest, Mary heard an answering hiss.

<Who speaks?>

<I. My name is Mary. Where are you?>

<Here, speaker.> The snake, which had been lying unnoticed in a patch of leaves, moved. She was light-brown with golden triangles down her back. <What are you?>

<I’m a witch. Greetings. What is your name?>

The snake made a sound which Mary thought was a laugh. <Humans call me Belladona, but my name is She Who Strikes Quickly.>

<I am honored to meet you, She Who Strikes Quickly.> Mary sat down next to the snake, careful not to block her sunlight. <How do you know humans?>

<I was born to be a familiar, but I did not like my wizard, so I left him. Who are these others with you?> The snake flicked her tongue at the Moon sisters. <One of them is familiar.>

<That’s Aerin. She showed me this place. The other is Lilian. They are sisters.>

She Who Strikes Quickly made the same laughing sound again. <And you, speaker?>

<Oh! I’m just Mary. Mary Elizabeth Potter. Mostly they call me Liz.>

<Why have you come to the forest, speaker-child?>

<I came to ask if anyone might be able and willing to do a thing for me.>

<What is the thing?>

<Some of the children in the Castle have been hurting me. I want help to scare them, so that they will stop.>

<I will ask my mate to join us. Wait.>

The asp slithered away into the trees. Mary looked up to see that Aerin and Lily were staring at her in fascination.

“What’s going on?” Lilian asked.

“Her name is She Who Strikes Quickly. I told her I want help to scare the other Slytherins so that they will stop hurting me. She went to ask her mate to join us.”

“This is so cool! I wish I could speak to animals.” The envy was clear in Aerin’s voice.

Mary shrugged. She had no idea what to say to that. Thankfully the snake and her mate returned before she had to think of anything. His name was a sound which was similar to the parsel word for still water, but did not have an actual meaning. He was slightly smaller and darker than his mate, with almost-black markings instead of gold.

Mary explained her plan and waited while the asps discussed it. After a short exchange, too quick for Mary to follow, they decided that it sounded interesting enough to come and help. She Who Strikes Quickly coiled herself around Mary’s neck while her mate hid himself in Mary’s left sleeve. The three girls walked back toward the castle, detouring widely around Hagrid’s house and circling around part of the lake. They made it back with plenty of time to spare before dinner.

* * *

Mary finished eating quickly and returned to Slytherin, only to hide herself away in the tunnels near the first-year boys’ junction. The snakes were in position and had their instructions – all they had to do was wait for Malfoy to visit his bedroom, and they would have him. Mary took a seat in the tunnel and waited patiently. She must have drifted off for at least a few minutes, because she was awoken by a very high-pitched scream, which cut off quickly, and was followed by the unmistakable sounds of Vinnie and Greg trying to enter Malfoy’s room and being deflected by the wards.

She Who Strikes Quickly darted out of the shadows and Mary picked her up, allowing the snake to take a position wrapped around her head like a crown. That had been the snake’s idea. She wanted to have a good spot from which to watch.

Mary strolled out of the side-tunnel with deliberate slowness, meandering into the commotion. Draco had left his door open – he must have just ducked into his room for a moment. Perfect.

She cleared her throat and tried to look cool and collected, but also as imposing as possible. “Good evening, Draco. Vinnie, Greg.”

Draco was frozen and didn’t dare respond, the male asp curled around his neck and poised to strike.

<So fearsome, my mate!> said She Who Strikes Quickly from her perch. Mary giggled. Vinnie and Greg were staring at her in shock, and hadn’t returned her greeting.

<Perfect!> Mary said to the male asp. The three boys’ eyes grew large with fear.

<It was nothing,> the asp responded.

“Greg, Vinnie, please go ahead to the Common Room. Draco and I are going to have a little chat,” Mary said. The boys looked at their friend and back to Mary a couple of times, but left without saying anything. Mary waited until they were probably out of earshot before she added, “You can talk. He’s not going to bite you. Yet.”

Draco took her up on the offer. Kind of. “You…Y-y-you’re a… you… snake?”

“Indeed.” She raised an eyebrow at him.

<You were right,> the male asp said, <he does smell of prey.>

<I thought he would. It’s funny, because his name is dragon in the human tongue.>

Both snakes made the sound which expressed amusement, but wasn’t really laughter.

There was a pungent smell as Draco wet himself. “Wh-wha-what did you s-say?”

“The snakes agree with my friend Hermione – you remember, from the train? Your name doesn’t fit you at all.” Draco looked like he almost wanted to be insulted, but couldn’t quite manage it under the circumstances. Mary giggled again. “Now listen closely. This is how it’s going to go. We’re going to walk into the Common Room, and you’re going to confirm a few things for me.”

“Anything! I’ll say anything you want! Just let me go!”

“One: You’re going to tell everyone that the ‘pranks’ against me stop right now. I know you’re not the only one, but you started it. Two: You’re going to admit you broke the Truce, repeatedly attacking me just because I’m Mary Potter, and you’re going to swear not to do it again. Three: You’re going to confirm that regardless of whatever else I may be, I _am_ a Slytherin, and I _do_ belong here.”

“I-I-I yes. I c-can do that.”

“Good. Start walking.” Mary glared at the boy as he stumbled past her, leading the way to the common room.

* * *

On the whole, Mary thought the Snake Prank went even better than she had anticipated. The bullying stopped immediately and the other Slytherins began to make it clear that she was one of them (though rumors of her parseltongue abilities began to spread through the castle almost as quickly). The snakes stayed in her room for several days, but no one tried to retaliate. Mary decided she could deal with the entire castle thinking she was a dark witch if it meant they would leave her alone.

Professor Snape called Mary in to his office to inform her that he would be filing a new rule forbidding students to bring venomous snakes into the castle (it wasn’t against the rules before because it hadn’t needed to be). He also told her that her plan was entirely lacking in subtlety and that she could have done better, but gave her five points for effectiveness and promised not to spread the word that she was no longer allowed to bring in snakes so long as she agreed to abide by it.

Unfortunately, Mary had not fully anticipated that building a reputation for herself as a parselmouth would gain her enemies among all the houses _except_ Slytherin. Even her reputation and fame as The Girl Who Lived did not save her from vicious rumors and a few equally vicious hexes from the upper-year Gryffindors. Hufflepuff House voted to shun her entirely, which made her History, Transfiguration, and DADA classes somewhat awkward. On top of that, Hermione was very upset with her for ignoring Professor McGonagall’s advice to keep her ability to speak to snakes quiet (and she didn’t even know _how_ Mary had revealed that particular talent). But the Slytherins retaliated against Gryffindor for her, and the Hufflepuffs wouldn’t actually try to hex her, so Mary considered the plan a success, overall.

As the month of September wore on, Mary found herself falling into a routine of classes, meals, letters, homework, research, and, of course, exploring the castle and grounds. Hermione joined Mary, Lilian and sometimes Aerin as they poked their noses everywhere but the Forbidden Forest and the Third Floor Corridor. Between their required work, explorations, and reading new and interesting books that Hermione found, the days fairly flew by, and Mary was almost surprised to realize that she had been at Hogwarts for almost a month already.

And then Lilian had to go and ruin everything. Mary could not remember, after, what she had originally been making fun of Malfoy for, but she had made a face, imitating him, and Lilian had said, in front of Hermione, that he had looked just like when she had set that snake on him. And then Hermione asked, in the same tone her mother used when she was about to take a ministry official to task, “What snake?” And the whole story came out. Before Mary could really comprehend what was happening, Hermione had stormed off and was refusing to talk to her. Once she understood, she blamed Lilian, and refused to talk to _her_ , though that only lasted for a day and a half – Mary had always been much better at enduring the silent treatment than enforcing it.

So it was that Mary entered her first October at Hogwarts in terrible spirits, despite her coup over the ringleaders of Slytherin.

##### Severus

Severus Snape, Potions Master, ex-Death Eater, former spy, Head of Slytherin House and bane of lazy, clumsy students, had not enjoyed his first week back to school even as much as he generally did. Normally, he quite appreciated the chance to remind all of the dunderheaded brats he was forced to teach that they were not, in fact, the Powers’ gift to the world, just because they happened to be able to do a bit of magic. Over the summer of 1991, however, he had received the rudest sort of shock: Mary Potter, Lily Evans’ daughter, would be coming to Hogwarts. He had known, of course, in the back of his mind, that the Girl Who Lived couldn’t possibly go anywhere else. But he most definitely had not expected Minerva McGonagall to inform him out of the blue that the girl would be coming to stay at the school _early_ due to an… untenable living situation.

The girl had stayed somewhere up on the fourth floor for a week, and Severus had studiously avoided her the entire time.

The major problem was that he was not certain how he wanted to deal with the girl. She was, of course, Lily’s child. He would protect her, if needed, because the Headmaster had asked him and in penance for his greatest mistake.

But she was also the child of that conceited jackass Gryffindor bully, James Potter. Her head was probably filled with lies about her own prowess, and illusions about the nature of her fame. He had expected that she would come to Hogwarts an arrogant little monster, like the Malfoy boy or her wretched father. He had expected that she would expect special treatment for her mother’s sacrifice – for he firmly believed it _was_ Lily’s sacrifice that had saved her daughter’s life and the rest of the wizarding world. He had seen the wreckage of the house, and knew his dark rituals perhaps even better than the Headmaster. Mary Potter was special only insofar as her mother had been the cleverest witch he had ever known. He had expected to hate her.

And then Minerva had had to bring her to Hogwarts early, a step she normally took only with the most severe cases of abuse and neglect of muggleborn children. Though he would never admit it, Severus had a soft spot for the children who were abused before they came to Hogwarts. Even as a Death Eater, before he had turned coat, he had never tortured children. It was one of the reasons he had agreed to be the head of Slytherin House: Slytherin was, at its core, a place for survivors, and more abuse victims found their way into Slytherin than any other House. The Old Families did not raise their children gently, and never had. It was his penance to spy and then work at Hogwarts, but he had chosen to become Head of Slytherin because he believed it was important for the children of “former” Death Eaters to have a safe and stable home for at least part of the year.

Reading between the lines (and with judicious use of legilimency to fill in the larger blanks), it seemed that the headmaster had placed the girl with Lily’s awful sister Petunia, who had always been jealous of Lily and hateful toward anything to do with magic. On receiving Mary’s Letter (which wasn’t even the right letter, apparently), Petunia had sent one of her own, demanding that the girl be removed from her care at once, never to be welcomed in her home again. (The Headmaster had been most displeased about that, though he would not say why. Severus had begun studying what wards he might have put in place which demanded that _Petunia_ of all people welcome the girl into her home, and was soon quite displeased himself.)

The only thing he could do, he had finally decided, was to reserve judgement until he actually _met_ the child. He had resolved to do so after she returned from the Diagon Alley trip. And then she had up and disappeared off into the muggle world again for the last month of the holidays. It was most infuriating.

Severus’ first glimpse of the child had been the same as everyone else’s: A thin-faced, green-eyed girl with a dark pony-tail, quiet and unassuming. She walked into the Great Hall, clearly nervous, but stepped forward to be sorted with a subtle air of self-possession. She had sat under the Hat for nearly three minutes, frowning and biting her lip, presumably arguing with it before it placed her in a house… _his_ House, of all the houses.

He almost smiled at that, despite his ambivalence toward the girl. A poke in the eye, this would have been, surely, for the late James Potter: that his daughter would _choose_ to be one of the “slimy snakes” he had loathed so deeply on principle. And Albus, though he had not frowned at the feast, had discussed at length in private the expectations he held for the little girl who he would hold up as a symbol for the light. A _Slytherin_ Girl Who Lived was never in his plans, much less a Girl Who Lived who _argued_ to be put into Slytherin. He had wanted the girl in Gryffindor or Hufflepuff. A Ravenclaw savior he could have worked with… but Slytherin’s reputation had been dragged through the mud by the Dark Lord and his followers.

Even now, the children of Severus’ house held thinly-veiled pureblood ideals, taught at their parents’ knees that their blood rendered them superior, and that the fall of the Dark Lord was a temporary setback in their goals of wresting power from the Light. There were more than a few students who would consider breaking the fragile Truce to take a shot at the Girl Who Had Ruined Their Family’s Reputation.

Since the sorting, he had watched the girl as carefully as he had avoided her during the summer. He contemplated his observations after the first Friday Staff Meeting of the year.

So far… so far the Slytherins had not attacked her directly, instead choosing to isolate her and ignore her. She was easy to ignore, going out of the way not to draw attention to herself, and seemingly content for things to remain that way. She had distanced herself somewhat from her famous reputation, introducing herself as Elizabeth, and managed always to be present without ever drawing attention. Her friendship with the Moon girl helped her there, as the other girl was much more outgoing and adventurous, drawing eyes away from her quiet companion. Mary’s eyes ( _Lily’s_ eyes) were always averted, her voice quiet and respectful in addressing adults, though he had heard the occasional sarcastic comment to her friends. She listened well, and thought about the tasks she was asked to perform. She had acquitted herself well in potions, following the instructions meticulously and producing an acceptable Boil Cure despite never having brewed before, which merited an _E_. His prefects informed him that she had been making efforts already to integrate into wizarding society – she had been spotted reading etiquette books in the library with the Granger girl.

He was almost pleased with the girl until he realized that, in many ways, Mary Elizabeth reminded him less of the vivacious eleven-year-old Lily Evans or the insufferably arrogant young James Potter, but rather of himself as a child. More ignorant, of course, than he had been – his mother had been a Prince, and had taught him accordingly despite his father’s wrath – but there were certain similarities, nonetheless. It was a very disturbing thought.

He shook his head slightly, and returned to marking the first essays of the term. He had more important things to do than dwell on his most famous first-year student. If he hurried, he could have the essays done before the staff meeting. After, of course, he had to complete his part of Dumbledore’s Great Diversion, and there were reports to review before the Slytherin House meeting, and he had a sneaking suspicion that something was _off_ with Quirrell. Someone ought to be keeping a closer eye on him…

* * *

Severus considered the stubborn girl sitting across the desk, eyes down, refusing to ask for help, refusing help when it was freely offered. When he asked her why she would refuse, she echoed his own childish thoughts on the nature of her peers’ esteem.

And when he warned her not to escalate the quiet war within his house, she said that she would not _escalate_ the violence, but end it. Severus would have found that much more reassuring if her phrasing hadn’t reminded him so unmistakably of a certain Dark Lord when she said it. If her earlier words had echoed his own, her final statement could have come from Lord Voldemort’s lips, and very nearly had.

“I’m going to end it, Severus,” he had said, the night the young Death Eater had delivered the fatal half a prophecy. “They believe I can be stopped. I will show them otherwise. That is all.”

It was, quite frankly, disturbing.

And the smile she gave him just before she left his office made her look like a miniature (hairless) version of Bellatrix, which _really_ didn’t help.

* * *

“Miss Potter,” Severus said, his most troublesome first-year sitting across his desk again, “Do you have anything to say for yourself regarding the report Miss Fawley made regarding your treatment of Mr. Malfoy yesterday evening?”

“No, sir.” She refused to look up.

Severus sighed. This was going to be a tedious meeting. “Very well, Miss Potter, we will do this the more difficult way. Are you in fact a parselmouth?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And did you bring a Cleo’s Asp into the Slytherin dorms in order to ambush Mr. Malfoy?”

“No, sir.”

“No?” He raised an eyebrow at the girl.

“I brought two, sir,” she explained, apparently reluctantly.

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off the tension headache he could already feel rising up behind his eyes. A very tedious meeting, indeed.

* * *

Severus always felt extremely out of place in the Headmaster’s office. It was a light, airy room full of silvery, tinkling instruments. He was a dungeon bat, through and through. On a good night (if Aurora had not been particularly irritating that day), he might consent to being an astronomy tower bat instead, but either way, darkness was his element. He was certain the Headmaster left him waiting with Fawkes, the ridiculously named phoenix, because he knew the creature’s warbling was uncomfortable for the one truly dark wizard in the castle.

Dumbledore reappeared from the depths of a space-bending storage trunk, a tiny vial in hand.

“Here we are, Severus!” The old man poured the silvery strand of memory from the vial to his pensieve. “Now you will see, I think, why I find the rumors currently circulating about Miss Potter to be so disturbing.”

Severus made a noncommittal noise and touched the surface of the pensieve only to be dragged into the memory.

It was somewhat blurry, and fuzzy around the edges, an effect, Severus was almost certain, due to the use of legilimency to obtain it. Dumbledore had used legilimency on a student, then extracted his own second-hand memory of the experience.

A pale, dark-haired boy with bright blue eyes sat in the Slytherin House Library. He was reading a book, though Severus could not make out the title through the blur.

“Who is this?” he asked the Headmaster.

“The boy is called Tom Riddle, though of course you would come to know him by a different name,” Dumbledore said quietly. “The year is 1937.”

There was a shriek from the dormitories. Severus was almost certain it was a boy. Tom Riddle stalked across the (strangely deserted) Common Room to the first-year boys’ junction. Severus, Dumbledore, and a handful of other students followed him. It did not escape Severus’ notice that the boy Riddle did not seem to have any doubts as to the origin of the shriek. He doubtless was responsible.

A blond boy – surely a Malfoy – was lying on the floor of the bathroom, twitching slightly. A snake abandoned the fallen boy and coiled itself around Riddle’s throat.

Snape inhaled sharply, the sound almost drowning out the whispered exchange between boy and serpent: A job well done, my darling. – A pleasure, speaker. Shall I return to the forest? Or have you some other task for me? – You may go.

The snake vanished through a crack in the wall.

Tom Riddle smiled threateningly at two other students as he swept out of the loo. They shivered under his gaze, and a chorus of whispers erupted in his wake. The memory went foggy, and Severus was able to pull himself away from the memory.

“You _legilimized_ the Dark Lord?” It could be no one else – there had been no other parselmouths at Hogwarts for over a hundred years.

“He was not yet Lord Voldemort, Severus. Only Tom Riddle, my most troublesome first-year student. He had the rest of the staff wrapped around his little finger, of course. I regret to say I was correct to mistrust him, even so early on. I would that I had been wrong… alas…”

Severus stared at his Headmaster, aghast at the depth of history between the two masters he was bound to serve and the fact that Dumbledore had used legilimency against a student – any student – when he was only a _troublesome first-year_.

“You see, though, Severus, why I am concerned?”

Severus considered the issue a moment. “I believe you need not worry yourself over the girl. She chose to threaten, not to strike. The choice to use a serpent follows naturally from the parsel talent and the lack of alternatives for a muggle-raised child in Slytherin.”

Dumbledore looked as though he wished to say something, but Severus ignored this. He still couldn’t believe that Dumbledore would use legilimency on a child in his care. It was a gross violation of privacy rights, even if the child in question was to become the Dark Lord. “I was actually quite impressed. A Cleo’s Asp is probably the only deadly creature she could have brought through the wards, and a snake the only effective weapon she could wield against Mr. Malfoy, given that he has several more years of hexes and political experience under his hat, and the older students had joined him in his attacks. It was clumsy, I will grant, but effective.”

“Severus…”

“If that is all, Headmaster?”

The Headmaster nodded reluctantly, and Severus left his office, shuddering in distaste as he closed the door at the top of the spiral stair.

It was not until he reached the dungeons that he realized the full import of Dumbledore’s revelation: the Dark Lord, greatest pureblood supremacist since Grindelwald, as a child, had been called Tom _Riddle_ …

Severus knew exactly what to do with this information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song that Lilian sings in this chapter is an adaptation of a folk song called The Two Magicians.


	11. Chapter 10: Out of Bounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a chapter which might be considered T by some readers for an Azkaban scene where Snape is a nasty git.

###  October 1991

#### Azkaban

##### Severus

###### In which we see that Severus is still not a very _nice_ person…

Severus Snape apparated to the northernmost point of mainland Scotland, a salt-blasted cliff-face called Dunnet Head. There was a lighthouse there, and sometimes muggle tourists, but never at this time of night. Invisible to the tourists, there was also a small hut with an attached broom-shed, home to a single lonely rookie from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. This was the closest thing the official prison of Magical Britain had to a human guard.

It didn’t need any others.

Azkaban prison was located nearly five miles from shore, barely in sight of land. It was protected by sheer cliff faces, much like those of Dunnet Head, but some mad wizard once upon a time had covered these in iron plates and hollowed out rooms in the rock, transforming the island into a fortress unassailable by boat. Neither portkeys nor apparition were allowed in the prison, so the only way to make an official visit – though people seldom _wanted_ to visit – was by broom. Less official methods of entry – fumation, shadow-walking, or invocation – were foiled by the five miles of salt-water across which it was damnably difficult to use Dark Arts.

Visitors to the prison were required to submit to a search by the lonely rookie DMLE guard, and to leave their wands behind. This was the main reason visits were so rare. Official ministry-approved parties would be escorted by aurors, who kept the _other_ guards away, repeatedly casting the Patronus charm in the face of hundreds of dementors – soul-sucking demons of unknown origin. Most wizards might trust an auror with their lives, but not with their souls.

Severus, much to his misfortune, had “enjoyed” the opportunity to observe Azkaban security from both sides at the end of Voldemort’s War, before his role as a spy was verified (he suspected that this was intentional on the part of Dumbledore). He had noted with a degree of cynicism that passed for amusement on Azkaban that there was a major flaw with the security procedures for the island – they assumed that any visitor would choose to stop at the guardhouse.

This, he thought, was a rather moronic oversight (therefore on par with his expectations of the Ministry). He had brought a broom with him, determined not to submit to the search and surrender his wand. He was not worried that he would not receive permission to make his intended visit – though several official eyebrows might have been raised over the request. He simply agreed with all other sane wizards (especially those who had been to Azkaban before), that he would be damned if he was going anywhere near a dementor unarmed.

Dementors were poorly understood creatures. It was said they fed on positive emotions, sucking them all right out of a person’s head anytime they were near, and had the ability to remove a person’s soul by sucking it out through their mouth. It was taught that they could only be repelled by the Patronus charm, which created an avatar of positive emotions to fight the creatures.

This was not, strictly speaking, true. There were several light battle spells which had proven effective against them, and there were rumors out of Miskatonic of Black Arts rituals to the Destructive Power which could give one the ability to control them. In any case, most wizards _knew_ that the only effective defense was the Patronus charm, and they looked no further.

Several brighter students in every fifth-year Defense class (at least when the “professor” was sufficiently competent to _reach_ dementors as a topic of discussion) asked how a shield made of a dementor’s favorite food could repel them. Skeptics were also prone to asking how it was actually known that the soul existed and that dementors could “suck it out”. Severus had never managed to find acceptable answers to any of these questions, and was, eventually, forced to conclude that no one actually knew for sure.

What they did know was that the proximity of dementors caused one to relive one’s worst memories over and over. Sorrow, guilt, and self-hatred often drove those imprisoned to starve themselves to death within a year, and madness was almost guaranteed with prolonged exposure. It was a most effective way to make criminals repent their crimes – a fate worse than death.

The woman Severus was there to visit had been arrested in early November of 1981 – nearly ten years prior. Her name was Bellatrix Lestrange, and she was condemned for torturing Frank and Alice Longbottom to the point of irreversible brain damage with the Cruciatus Curse. A single use of that curse could land you a lifetime sentence in Azkaban. It was specifically designed not to be blocked by any spell, and worked by activating and overwhelming every nerve-ending in the body simultaneously. It was, quite simply, the worst physical pain it was _possible_ to feel, if it was done correctly.

There was no doubt that she had done it, and that she had done many other equally horrible things over the course of the war. She was, after all, Lord Voldemort’s protégé and right-hand woman. Muggles would call her a sadist and a psychopath. She had no pity for her victims, and claimed to regret none of her life’s choices. Though it was not widely known, Bellatrix had been calling the shots for the Death Eaters as a group for nearly three years before the fateful Halloween of the Dark Lord’s fall. The Dark Lord himself had become increasingly unstable, and Bellatrix, who knew an opportunity when she saw it, had placed herself between the Lord and his followers, acting as his main lieutenant and “relaying” “his” orders.

She was housed in the level reserved for the worst offenders, which correspondingly had the greatest dementor presence.

* * *

Severus stalked down the hall, face lit faintly by the light of his patronus as it guarded him from the guards. Bellatrix had the nerve to be asleep (or to be pretending convincingly) when he reached her cell. Her curly black hair was wild and disheveled, and she wore the same grey uniform as all the other prisoners. She was thinner than he remembered, but nowhere near as emaciated as many of the other captives.

“Bella. Wake up. I didn’t come all this way just to watch you sleep.”

She stretched in a way that might have been seductive if they weren’t in Azkaban, or if she wasn’t the woman he despised above all others. She leaned back on her palms and fixed him with a mad grin. It hadn’t changed appreciably in the past ten years. “Hallo, Sev. Long time no see. Why are you here, if not to watch me sleep?”

“Straight to the point? You used to like a bit more foreplay, if I recall.”

“Small talk is overrated, but if you insist: What news of my dear sister and her spawn? How goes teaching in that hellhole? Old goat still alive and kicking? Got much of a love life? I am as you see me – one day the same as the next. I think that should cover it.”

Severus rolled his eyes. He doubted she cared, but what the hell? It wasn’t as though she was going anywhere. “Narcissa is fine, so far as I know. Your insufferable nephew has started Hogwarts. Narcissa has spoiled him rotten, and Lucius has imparted a sense of entitlement to rival his own.” Bellatrix snorted at this. Her disdain for her brother-in-law was well-known among the Death Eaters. “The old goat _is_ still alive, most unfortunately. But he’s no better a legilimens than he ever was, so at least there’s that. Slytherin is still Slytherin. The students think themselves clever, of course, but, as always, they lack subtlety and forethought. I despair for the future. And if you must know, I’m fucking the astronomy professor.”

“Not old Stephan Feldsmiffler?” said Bellatrix with an evil smirk. “Always thought you liked girls, but good for you…”

“No, you wretched bint. He died ages ago. Collateral damage when the Defense Professor of ’84 blew himself up. It’s a witch.”

“Oh? How have the DADAs been knocked off recently? Last you mentioned last time was the one that got eaten by an acromantula.”

Snape grinned viciously at the thought of his former colleagues’ deaths, then thought, _Dark Powers, am I really so desperate for conversation that I’m enjoying the thought of chatting with Bellatrix?_ But he answered nonetheless. “The one after that was nosing around the dungeons and ‘accidentally’ stumbled into a Dark Arts trap ward in one of the empty storerooms. Can’t think how _that_ got there.”

“Poor Sev. You hardly ever get to torture anyone anymore. How sad for you. Almost as bad as being here. Wait, you have to deal with Bumbles. You might have got the worse deal.”

“Indeed. His skin melted off, dreadful thing.” Severus was slightly surprised that Bellatrix was even making the effort to pretend to care, but he supposed her opportunities to talk to anyone were few and far between. “Then there was the one who was assaulting female first and second-years. He’s in here, downstairs somewhere. In 1988...ah, yes. Took the students out to the lake to hunt for a kappa or something and was violated by the Giant Squid. She refused to return. Then there was the one who was caught stealing gilded frames and minor treasures to sell to Dung Fletcher, and last year’s just got pregnant.”

“Hmm… fascinating. So it’s still 1991, then? Or ’92?”

“’91. Sixth of October.”

Bellatrix nodded and changed the subject. “By the by, do you recall, in the third phrase of the arithmantic description of the General Theory of Motion Charms, if it’s two-aleph gamma delta theta all over the sum of the area below the curve describing power input over time up to the power peak, or if it’s just gamma delta theta over that section of the curve?”

Severus hid his exasperation: no one should be able to do arithmancy after ten years of dementor exposure, but then, no one should be able to hold a reasonable conversation after ten _months_ of this place. He was only slightly more surprised by the fact that Bellatrix was actively thinking about abstract concepts than he had been five years ago, when she had asked whether he’d seen anyone die horribly recently. (The minister had insisted that he come up to identify two dead Death Eaters. The aurors had gotten them mixed up, the insufferable idiots.)

Knowing Bellatrix, her apparent sanity was specifically calculated to drive any visitors around the twist.

“I see you’re just as sane as ever, Bella, dear.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say _that_. I’m running out of things to stave off the boredom, you see. The guards don’t even have interesting conversations up here. It’s all ‘go’ ‘come’ ‘mine’ and ‘yes’ or ‘no’.” She made a rattling, growling noise at a dementor which was trying to sneak past Severus’ patronus. It backed off immediately with a rattling hiss. “Yeah, same to you, France! Scram or I’ll set you on fire again.”

How the hell had she set a dementor on fire? And of all the things to name a dementor, why _France_? He decided he didn’t want to know. “So you’re revising sixth-year arithmancy and learning to speak to _dementors_?”

“Well do you see anyone else to torture around here? I’m _bored_ , Sev. Bored, bored, _bored_ ,” she added in a sing-song tone. “I also translated Hamlet into Gobbledygook, and reworked about half the Dark Arts spells I know into Siren Song.” Severus raised an eyebrow at this. He had known Bellatrix was brilliant, but reworking spells into another language was _hard_. Exponentially moreso when it was a non-human language. She smirked at him. “I found the themes of Hamlet worked well with the sixth Century takeover of Clan Torgeld by the fifth Kraight Bonegrinder. Would you agree?”

“I take back my earlier assessment of your sanity.” She laughed. It was the same sound he was once accustomed to hearing across the battlefield, harsh and cruel. “The Bellatrix I knew,” he added, “Would never have admitted knowing muggle literature or creature languages.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Much as I detest the lower life-forms, I did have the benefits of a proper Black education. One must know one’s subjects, as auntie Walburga used to say. And the Dark Lord is gone somewhere, and I’m _bored_. So what do you want?”

Now it was Severus’ turn to smirk. “Do you recall the last time I was here, when I informed you that you were not suffering properly?”

“Yes, five years ago or so? You were quite irate. Are you still pissed about, oh, whatever it was?”

Severus glared at her. “You used me as your whipping-boy for the last two years of the war! You’re not supposed to be sitting here playing word games and threatening dementors! You’re _supposed_ to be reliving your most horrible memories and slowly going mad regretting your past mistakes!”

She grinned. “Awww, poor Sevvie-poo. Still a swotty little bastard, I see. It’s not going to happen. Dementors are boring, and solitary confinement is dull, and the other prisoners are even worse conversationalists than you, but I already lived through my worst memories. I know all the terrible things lurking in my soul, and _I like them_. There is nothing dementors can do to me. It weirds them out.”

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. This was even worse than talking to Mary Elizabeth about the Snake Incident. “Only you, Bellatrix, would creep out dementors.”

“Eh, it’s something to pass the time. They’ll be shot of me when the Dark Lord returns. Last chance, Severus Snape: why are you here? If you’re not going to answer my arithmancy problem, the least you could do is state your business.”

“Funny you should mention the Dark Lord,” Severus said with the hint of a smirk playing around his lips.

Bellatrix sat up, fully engaged for the first time since Severus had arrived. “Is there news? Where is he? What can I do? Tell me!”

“No news, at least not of his current whereabouts or whatever happened that night. I have, however, discovered a most _fascinating_ bit of information about his past…” Bellatrix was hanging on his every word. He could almost _taste_ her interest. “Tell me, Bella, dear: Do you know the Dark Lord’s name?”

“Of course I do. Just because I refuse to speak it as a matter of respect does not mean I don’t know it. Do you think I’m an idiot?”

“Not _Voldemort_. His _given name_.”

Bellatrix was quiet for a long moment. “Tom.” Severus was somewhat surprised. He had not thought that even Bellatrix would know that. “He came to my fifth birthday party,” she continued, “And father introduced him as Mr. Tom. That would have been early in 1956. He had just returned to Britain and was looking up his old contacts.” She giggled. “I asked him if he brought me a present, and he conjured a blood quill from somewhere or other. I asked him about it years after – he said it was supposed to be a punishment for my impertinence in _asking_ for a gift.” She smiled at Severus. It was perhaps the creepiest thing he had ever seen her do, which was saying quite a lot. “I had forgotten that. I suppose it counts as a happy memory.”

Bellatrix had known the Dark Lord since she was _five_? That… explained rather a lot, actually. Well, all the better. “And his surname?”

She shrugged. “I was never told. He said he wanted to divorce himself entirely from the person he was as a child – he did not have my advantages, you see, of being trained to his position from a young age. I gather he made several embarrassing mistakes along the way and wanted to distance himself from that.”

Snape smirked. “Not quite. I happened to learn recently from our Esteemed Headmaster that the Dark Lord’s given name was Tom _Riddle_.”

“Riddle?” Bella’s voice was suddenly hard.

“Indeed. A _muggle_ name if ever I heard one.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“How would you have me prove it?”

“You can’t. It’s not true. The Dark Lord is _not_ a mudblood! I will kill you for the insult to his name!” She waved her hand at Severus, and a jolt of fire flew through the air. He hesitated in surprise – he hadn’t realized she was working on wandless magic – but managed to deflect it just before it would have hit his face. “He is the Heir of Slytherin! He cannot be a mudblood! It’s not true!”

“It _is_ true. His mother, yes, she was a Gaunt, but his father? Muggle scum, I assure you. I came all the way out to this powers-bedamned rock just to share it with you. Now, perhaps, you will find you have a terrible memory to relive after all. Think, perhaps, on all the times you obeyed him, all the times you _defended_ him. Think of all the times you _fucked_ that mudblooded hypocrite. Think of his mark branded on your arm and _writhe_ in the knowledge of your own… _contamination._ ”

Bellatrix wailed, apparently accepting Severus’ reason for telling her the awful truth, then collapsed to the floor in a ball, clutching her knees and rocking slightly.

Severus tried to get her attention again, just to twist the knife a bit more, but she had gone completely unresponsive. _Good_. Perhaps the dementors were getting to her after all. He would have expected her to put up more of a fight.

He whistled a jaunty tune as he went to look in on Sirius Black. If he could make the would-be murderer cry before he left, his day would be complete.

#### Hogwarts

Mary’s October was, if she had to describe it in a single word, lonely. It was odd to think so, because she had never had friends before the summer, and still did have Lilian and Aerin to spend time with, but Hermione had been her _first_ friend, and she was sad that they weren’t speaking. She didn’t know if they would ever speak again. Hermione wouldn’t even stay put so that Mary could apologize to her. Every time Hermione noticed Mary approaching in the library, she gathered up her books and walked away. In class, she acted like Mary didn’t exist.

The situation was made even stranger by the fact that the Drs. Granger had been as good as their word – Mary had stopped writing them after Hermione stopped talking to her, and they sent Iris with a note checking whether she was alright and asking what had happened. So Mary was still talking to Hermione’s parents, but not Hermione. They kept telling her to be patient and give Hermione some time to cool off before she tried to make up for whatever “bad thing” she had done. Mary wasn’t sure it would be that easy.

After nearly a month of awkward evasions, Aerin of all people decided that enough was enough. Mary never learned exactly what she said to make Hermione give her another chance, but apparently it involved cornering her in the library with the help of a few other Ravenclaws. On a Wednesday evening, a week before Halloween, Aerin informed Mary that she ought to go try to talk to Hermione again after dinner.

She received the dressing-down of her life – apparently Hermione did not accept that there had been no other way to get Malfoy off her back than to threaten him with a snake – but at the end of it they were friends again.

“I missed you, Lizzie,” Hermione said, almost too quietly to hear. Mary could only imagine what it had been like for Hermione – at least she had Lils and Aerin to talk to. Hermione had shut out all three of them.

“I missed you, too, Maia.”

The two girls stood around awkwardly for a long moment, until Hermione broke the silence by asking what Mary had been up to all month.

Mary explained that they had explored all of the castle as well as they could in the evenings, and were thinking of trying to get down the Forbidden Corridor to see why it was forbidden. Hermione almost stopped talking to her again right there.

“I can’t believe you! I stop talking to you for a month, and you go right on breaking the rules!”

Mary couldn’t help but laugh a bit at that. “I thought you were not speaking to me over threatening Blondie. It wasn’t actually against the rules.”

“I was – don’t change the subject! How was it _not_ against the rules?”

“Well, I guess going into the forest was, but no one ever thought to make a rule about bringing in venomous snakes, because you can’t, most of them, or threatening other students, because Slytherin house would die of boredom if you couldn’t make power plays, or against using a snake to do it, because there are so few parselmouths.” Hermione was staring at Mary in utter disbelief. Mary grinned. “Snape even gave me a few points because it was effective, though he said that my plan was ‘lacking in grace and subtlety.’” Mary imitated Snape for the last bit, and Hermione couldn’t help laughing.

She rolled her eyes. “Of course he did. I suppose I should have believed Lilian when she told me your only rule was ‘don’t get caught.’”

“Well, no, that’s rule number two, but it’s the important one. And Malfoy and everyone else was breaking rule one, so…”

“Fine! But it’s not okay that you threatened him like that. Mum says you shouldn’t ever make a threat you’re not willing to follow through with. Would you really have asked that snake to kill him?”

Mary hesitated for a long moment. “No, I guess not.”

“See? And you shouldn’t be looking for trouble down that corridor either!”

“Aren’t you even the least bit curious?”

“Of course I am! It’s been driving me mad all month. But I trust Dumbledore put that dog there for a reason!”

“And left a locking charm on the door that you can undo with an _alohomora_? That’s practically an invitation!”

“You’d have to be a complete _idiot_ to take up an invitation like that.”

They continued to argue about the Forbidden Corridor in quiet corners for the rest of the week. It was infinitely preferable to the silent treatment. Mary (and Lilian and Aerin) could not be swayed – they _would_ explore that corridor. In the end, Hermione’s curiosity got the better of her, and she agreed to come as well.

* * *

Saturday evening found Mary and Lilian back in their sneaking-out clothes, ghosting through the shadows to their rendezvous point – the fifth-floor entrance to Ravenclaw tower. Aerin and Hermione met them, as planned, just after eleven, and the four of them began to creep down toward the third floor. They had to hide from Filch on the fourth floor, and just as they were coming up on the corridor, they heard the sound of footsteps and whispers behind them. The girls ducked into an alcove, behind a statue of a witch holding what looked like a bouquet of turnips, and pulled their cloaks over their faces.

“Are you _sure_ you know where Filch is?”

“Course we are.”

“Shut _up_ , Katie!”

“Fifth floor,”

“South wing,”

“By Ravenclaw.”

“Fred! George!”

“It’s _fine_ , Alicia!”

“Yeah, relax.”

The voices faded away and the girls crept back out of the nook. No sooner had they approached the door, however, than they heard more voices.

“Are you sure they were headed this way?”

“Wilkes, I’m warning you. One more word!”

“Boys! Keep it down! Spinnet said they were going out tonight, so they had to be going down! We just have to catch up so we can find their passage out.”

“Aye, aye, captain.”

There was a muffled smacking sound, as though the girl had hit the boy for his comment.

These voices, too, faded away.

“Was that Morgana?” Lilian whispered.

“I think so. And they were following the Gryffindors,” said Mary, equally quietly.

“Want to go see what they were up to?”

“Kind of, yeah.”

The Slytherins started creeping toward the stairs.

“Hey! Where are you two going?” Hermione asked. It had taken so long to get her to agree to come explore the Forbidden Corridor (against her better judgement), and now they weren’t even going to do it?

“Come on, that will still be there next weekend. Don’t you want to know what half the third year is up to?”

Hermione bit her lip, but Aerin grabbed her arm and started towing her along with a decisive “Yes.”

“Fine, fine. Aerin, let go, I’m coming.”

* * *

The girls trailed Morgana and her friends through the castle, stopping every so often to listen around corners when they thought they’d lost them. They didn’t, and apparently the Slytherins didn’t lose the Gryffindors, either, because they were eventually able to watch the older students slip outside through a narrow spinning door (disguised as an empty alcove) near one of the side-entrances to the castle.  

They waited a minute so that the Slytherins could get a bit of a lead, and then followed again. As soon as they were outside, it was clear where the line of students, silhouetted by the light of the nearly-full moon, was headed – directly to the Quidditch pitch.

“What are they _doing_?” Lilian whispered, but apparently she was not quiet enough, because a boy’s voice answered from behind them.

“That’s what we would like to know.” The four girls looked around to see three third-year Slytherins with their wands trained on them. One of them _was_ Morgana. The other two were Perry Wilkes and Adrian Lestrange, boys Mary and Lilian had never had cause to talk to.

“Erm…” Hermione said, her instinct to answer any question asked in her vicinity clearly warring with her common sense.

Mary, meanwhile, was more concerned with the fact that she had clearly just seen seven silhouettes moving across the lawn. “But you were in front of us!” she objected. The older students ignored her.

“Following you, obviously,” Lilian blurted.

“Why were you following us?” Morgana asked impatiently.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time?” Aerin offered. The boys laughed, but Morgana fixed a glare on Hermione. She knew the weak link in a group when she saw it. Mary could only hope to be as good an interrogator one day.

The younger girl caved after only a moment. “We were out and heard the Gryffindors sneak by and then you lot and we wanted to know what was going on.”

Mary smacked her in the shoulder. “The second rule is don’t get caught! That means you’re not supposed to admit that this isn’t part of the plan.”

“I’m not a Slytherin, Lizzie!”

“You’re making me and Lils look bad!” The older Slytherins were cracking up by that point.

Adrian took pity on them. “It’s fine. No one expects first-years to be really sneaky, anyway,” he said, with all the confidence and experience of his two years’ senority. “We were following the Weasleys.”

“Research, don’t ask,” added Perry.

Mary and Lilian nodded while the Ravenclaws looked confused. “The Weasleys are the Gryffindor pranksters,” Lilian explained. “These three are ours.”

“Oh, so you’re not really friends?” Hermione asked Morgana, thinking of the train.

The older girl shook her head. “More like friendly rivals.”

“Come on, they’ve got to be almost all the way to the Pitch by now,” Perry said impatiently.

“You can come as long as you’re quiet,” Adrian told the younger students.

Morgana did some sort of charm on all of them that felt like being wrapped in an overly-warm blanket, and much to Mary’s surprise, they were suddenly camouflaged against the grass of the lawn. She held a hand up to the sky to see her skin become dotted with white “stars”. “Wicked!”

Morgana shushed her and the seven students began to creep toward the Quidditch Pitch, keeping low to the ground. They had not gotten very far when a brash Weasley voice from overhead commented: “You lot are going to take forever at that pace.”

His twin followed up with: “Yeah, are you coming flying or not?”

“That’s what you’re up to?” Adrian asked in an irritated tone. “Night flying?”

“Obviously.”

“We don’t,”

“Pull pranks,”

“Every night.”

One of the Gryffindor girls floated over. “Of course not. That would be too predictable.” Her friend laughed.

“Come on, hurry up!”

“We have enough people now for Quaftan.”

“What’s Quaftan?” Hermione asked.

“It’s like Quidditch, but with no snitch and no bludgers,” explained one of the Gryffindor girls.

“Like football on brooms?”

“Why do all broom sports start with a ‘q’?”

Hermione’s question was ignored. The twins answered Mary though. “Good question, Not-Mary!” exclaimed the one who was executing very slow barrel-rolls at head height.

“Next question?” asked the one who was hanging from his hovering broom by his knees.

“It is a mystery for the ages,” confirmed Morgana. The older Slytherins had been holding a whispered conference, and had apparently reached some sort of decision. Morgana cancelled her camouflage charm, and the boys started racing for the broom shed. “You coming?” she asked the younger girls.

Mary and Lilian agreed enthusiastically while Aerin just shrugged and nodded. Hermione looked a little concerned, but eventually agreed to come along as well. They played Quaftan for a while (Slytherins and Hermione vs. Gryffindors and Aerin – the Gryffindors won, as the Slytherins were stuck with all the first-years), then follow-the-leader, then the older students had a competition to see who could do the best trick (Adrian won with a one-handed hand-stand), and then Mary won a diving contest, skimming the ground with her outstretched fingertips after a fifty-foot plunge. Hermione shrieked and told her off for nearly killing herself, but the boys were joking that they should make her come out and go after a few practice-snitches after that, and Morgana said she should go out for Slytherin’s seeker the following year.

Eventually only the twins were doing anything, playing catch with the quaffle while the others floated around the goal hoops and chatted. Adrian invited everyone to come to the Halloween revel the following week. Katie and Alicia looked kind of uncomfortable with the idea, but Aerin said that she would come, of course, and Hermione was curious about wizarding holidays. Mary and Lilian would have gone regardless, just because they had been invited by older Slytherins. Fred and George insisted that they would come as well, even though Katie pointed out that their family was light and Christian.

“So what?” they asked together.

“We can still honor the dead,”

“And we love a good party!”

“ _And_ ,” Morgana added, “I’m not convinced that these two aren’t Avatars of the Chaotic Power.”

“Aww, Morgan!” said a twin with a fake sniffle, wiping an equally fake tear from his eye.

“That might be,” the boys were drifting toward Morgana, and she was looking a bit wary.

“What are you doing?”

“The nicest thing,”

“Hey! Hey! Stop it! What are you –“ Morgana’s protests were cut off as the Weasleys sandwiched her between them in a terribly awkward mid-air hug.

“Anyone’s ever said about us!”

“Get off me you assholes!”

The twins laughed along with everyone else, but let her go.

“You know,”

“You love us!”

Morgana aimed a kick at the nearer twin. He dodged and made a rude gesture at her.

“You all ready to go back?” Alicia changed the subject. “We’ve just been sitting around for a while now, and I’m tired.”

The twins shared a look. “Yeah,”

“Suppose so.”

The posse trooped back across the lawns, much less sneakily than they had left the castle. It was nearly three, according to Perry’s _tempus_ charm, and even Morgana didn’t think that anyone else would be out so late. She was, perhaps unfortunately, incorrect.

“What,” said an exceedingly dry voice behind them. They froze as one and slowly turned around as the voice continued to speak. “ _Precisely_ , are… eleven students… from every house but _Hufflepuff…_ doing out of bed in one night?”

“Erm…” said Hermione, exactly as she had when Morgana confronted them hours earlier. Mary stepped on her foot. “Ouch!”

“Good morning, Professor Snape,” said Adrian, clearly at a bit of a loss.

“Mr. Lestrange. Mr. Wilkes. Miss Yaxley. Miss Potter. Misses Moon. Miss Granger. Messers Weasley. Miss Spinnet. And Miss Bell. I ask you again, what are you all doing out of bed so late after curfew?”

“Nothing, sir,” chorused the older Slytherins. The younger girls followed this with stumbling, guilty-sounding ‘nothing’s of their own while the Gryffindors stared at them in bemusement. One of the twins started laughing, but stopped when his brother kicked him in the shin.

“Very well, then. Fifty points from Slytherin, twenty from Ravenclaw, and a hundred from Gryffindor. Now get back to bed.”

“What! That’s not fair!” said Hermione, apparently unable to keep her mouth shut.

One of the twins clapped a hand over her face from behind, and said, “Yes, sir.” But the damage was already done.

“Five points from Ravenclaw for your cheek, Miss Granger.”

Just then, another figure materialized out of the dark. “Oh, come on, Snape. That really wasn’t fair.”

“Shut _up_ , Sinistra,” Professor Snape snapped.

“You can’t take twice as many points from Gryffindor as Slytherin just because you don’t like them.”

“The _Gryffindors_ were the only ones who refused to answer my question,” the head of Slytherin responded smoothly. “As such, I must assume they were up to mischief of some sort, as the others, by their own admission, were not.”

“Bullshit!” said Professor Sinistra with a snort of laughter.

It was at this point that Morgana interrupted. “Professor Snape. Professor Sinistra. Good morning. What brings you out to the lake… together… at such an hour?”

If looks could kill, Professor Snape’s glare would have struck the older girl down where she stood. She smirked back at him. After a moment he rolled his eyes and bit out several sentences. They sounded almost painful. “Fine. No points will be taken for this little misadventure of yours. None of us saw any of the others. Clear?”

There was a chorus of ‘yes, sir’ and ‘crystal’ and one ‘aye-aye, professor.’

Then Morgana had the audacity to add, “And, sir?”

“Five points to Slytherin. Now get to bed!” He waved them off toward the castle impatiently, and they heard him saying to Professor Sinistra as they left “I told you I would _handle_ it, Sinistra!”

“What was _that_ about?” Hermione asked as they re-located their secret passage into the castle.

“Professors Snape and Sinistra hate each other, right? But they’re kind of together, and neither of them wants anyone to know. So if you catch them together and don’t say anything about it, Snape gives you a favor, so keep it quiet and he won’t take those points away,” explained Perry.

“And he gives Slytherins five points any time they outmaneuver him,” added Adrian. “It doesn’t happen very often.” Morgana was grinning, but she didn’t say anything. The students split up when they entered the castle, and the Slytherins made their way back to their common room silently.

###  Halloween 1991

#### Hogwarts

The next few days were a welcome return to the routines of late September, at least as far as Mary was concerned. The girls attended their usual classes (Professor Flitwick taught them a levitation charm, which seemed much more _magical_ for some reason than the simple sparks, light charms or basic personal hygiene charms they had been working on), studied etiquette and the differences between muggle myths and actual magical creatures (Hermione’s latest pet-topic, after discovering that there was a cerberus in the castle) in the library after dinner, and generally enjoyed the fact that they were on speaking terms again.

Things were a bit more tense between Mary and Hermione than they had been before the Snake Prank, but Lilian, who had long-since realized that neither of the other girls had much experience with _friends_ , assured them that this was normal, and that it would pass, given time. They avoided talking about snakes, the Forest, and exploring where they weren’t supposed to be, and Hermione slowly became more comfortable with her Slytherin friends again.

Surprisingly, at least to Mary, Hermione was more than willing to discuss the Revel they had been invited to by the older Slytherins, and she was fully intending on attending, despite the fact that it was out of bounds and after hours. She was terribly interested in traditional wizarding holidays, and could hardly wait to see what the older students were planning.

Mary and Lilian had only a slightly better idea than Hermione of what the celebration was about – the older Slytherins (between grumbling about the lack of proper official celebrations) had been drawing the younger students aside and telling them about the party, but mostly they were told not to mention it to anyone and to be ready and waiting for further instructions on Thursday.

Mary wasn’t sure exactly how the wizarding religion worked, and Lilian was not very helpful, since her family were not active pagans or traditionalists, or whatever the politically correct term was. They did know that the holiday was also called Samhain, and that it was a celebration of the dead and one of the major holidays for Dark wizards. Hermione had looked it up and found a little information on the Dark Powers, which seemed to be some kind of gods (the Chaotic Power was one of them, which made Morgana’s comment about the Twins much funnier), but all of the more specific references to the holiday rituals were in the Restricted Section. What might be expected to happen at the Revel was anyone’s guess, as far as the trio was concerned.

By Thursday, everyone was excited, regardless of their plans for the evening. Everyone was going to the Halloween Feast, and it was the tenth anniversary of the end of the War, which was a much bigger deal for the older students, who could actually remember what it was like, but by no means insignificant for the rest of them. For example, Mary now knew that it was the day her parents had died, and she had not.

Mary had been most displeased to learn that the wizards also had a holiday on the first of November called _Mary Potter Day_ to celebrate that event. At first she had thought it some kind of sick joke, but apparently it wasn’t, as the Professor called her into her office to discuss it on Tuesday evening. What, she had to ask, was wrong with just calling it V-day or something? The Professor hadn’t really had an answer besides “politics”.

Halloween had always been Mary’s favorite holiday. It was the one day a year when Aunt Petunia had to allow _freakishness_ in her house (she did try to get Dudley to dress up as a fireman or police officer rather than anything supernatural, but she didn’t often succeed – last year he had been a ridiculously obese vampire), and there was often enough candy floating around that she could steal a piece or two. She loved wandering around the streets after dark and watching the other children trick-or-treating and making mischief. She was never given any sweets herself (Aunt Petunia had vindictively told the neighbors every year that Mary had diabetes and couldn’t be trusted with sugar), but sometimes Mrs. Pearson at Number Seven would give her an apple, which was almost as good. Halloween was the one day a year when _everyone else_ was pretending to be a freak, so she fit right in… and there was no way that she was going to let stupid Mary Potter Day or the newfound knowledge of her parents’ death date ruin her love of the holiday.

Mary and Lilian entered the Halloween Feast with the rest of the Slytherin first-years. There were only a few amazed gasps, but anyone who was watching them closely would have noticed their wide eyes and poorly concealed delighted grins. Even Draco Malfoy could not entirely hide his expression as they watched thousands of bats swooping around the tables and giant, floating jack-o-lanterns full of candles, with the waning moon just visible behind a massive bank of clouds. It was, in a word, perfect.

The students took their seats and the Headmaster made a short speech, which Mary paid no attention to whatsoever, still watching the enchanted clouds rolling across the ceiling. The food appeared suddenly in the golden serving dishes, just as it had at the start-of-term banquet. Mary was amused to see that several deserts had been served along with the main course. Hermione, who had mentioned that Halloween was the one day a year when she was allowed to eat sweets, would be very pleased.

Mary was just filling her plate when Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the hall, his turban askew and terror on his face. Everyone stared as he reached the Headmaster’s chair, slumped against the table, and gasped, “Troll – in the dungeons – thought you ought to know.”

And then he fainted dead away.

There was an uproar. At the Slytherin table, from what Mary could hear, it was more concerned with the likelihood of Quirrell telling the truth (and wasn’t it suspicious that he didn’t stutter at all, and wasn’t it odd that he just fainted like that – suspicious, wasn’t it? – had to be an act), but someone at the Hufflepuff table was shrieking that they were all going to die, and several Gryffindors looked to be putting together a plan to go hunting the troll. It took several purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Professor Dumbledore’s wand to bring silence.

“Prefects,” he rumbled, “lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!”

About half of Slytherin House tried to catch Professor Snape’s eye simultaneously. He grinned at them – or perhaps _bared his teeth at them_ would be a more accurate description (it was not a pleasant expression) – and headed for the doors. Mary heard his dry voice speaking quietly in her ear, much like Miss Farley had done at the end of the first feast.

“Slytherin House, follow your prefects. Miss Rowle, Mr. Burke, evacuation plan Beta-Funf.”

The seventh-year prefects immediately shot green and silver sparks from their wands, and Mary heard a younger man’s voice – probably Burke – saying “Slytherins head for the main doors. Rendezvous outside on the front lawn. Avery, you’ve got first-years, Rosier take second. Farley, third; Moon, fourth. Carpenter, Carmichael, and Lisbon, you’re reps for the upperclassmen. Make your head-counts and report to Avery and Rosier. Avery is in charge of organizing search and recover if necessary. Rosier makes tactical decisions. Move!”

Mary and Lilian were swept up in the tide of Slytherins rushing to the main hall doors. Mary was pretty sure she saw Professor McGonagall shoot them a look – probably for ignoring the Headmaster, but really, if there was a troll in the dungeons, why would they go back to their Common Room, which was _also_ in the dungeons? That would just be daft.

Safely outside on the lawn, the first-years congregated around Miss Avery, who dutifully made a head-count. All were present and accounted-for. Two of the fifth-years, a sixth-year, and four of the seventh-years were missing, but when Avery did her tracking spell, it indicated that they were nowhere near the dungeons, so she and Mr. Rosier decided that they probably didn’t need to be rescued.

After a few long, boring minutes of standing around, Lilian asked aloud, “I wonder what Miss Rowle and Mr. Burke were doing.”

Her brother overheard and called over, “They’re locking down the Common Room and Potions Labs.” He walked a bit closer before continuing, explaining for the benefit of all the first-years. “Case B Scenarios are those where the majority of the House is in the Great Hall or class or otherwise out of the dorms. Class 5 Scenarios involve a major threat to the school. German suggests that the threat is physical destruction or demolition. Evacuation Beta-funf requires us to get you all out of the school, and the seventh-year prefects are to go and lock down the potions labs and dorms so that the damage is minimalized. Professor Snape must have been worried that the troll would break in and either blow up the foundations or bring the Hufflepuff Common Room crashing down into ours. They’re right above us, you know.” Only Slytherins, Mary thought, would have worked out and encoded a series of evacuation plans for anything so absurd as a troll threatening to take out the foundations of the school.

Just then, they heard a magically magnified female voice shouting, “Slytherin, retreat!” from a first-floor window.

“SHIT!” yelled Rosier, his own voice suddenly much louder as well. “Everyone away from the doors! Upperclassmen hide younger students, then yourselves. DON’T FORGET SCENT, FOOTFALLS, AND TRACERTRACK! Once you’re disillusioned, head for the Quidditch Pitch.” He began following his own advice, cracking the second-years sharply on the top of their heads with his wand and muttering half a dozen incantations over the lot of them. “Get going, you lot!”

Mary tried to call out for Lilian, but Avery had already silenced her, and Lilian was invisible or something. It was even better than the camouflage spell Morgana had used on them, though it felt cold and slimy as it dripped down from the top of her head. The other students were quickly becoming little more than heat-shimmers, nearly entirely invisible in the poor light. She halfheartedly began to jog toward the pitch, but stopped when the main doors burst open, a twelve-foot-tall creature with a great lumpy body and a tiny bald head was running from several of the professors, the Headmaster among them. Four jets of red light hit it simultaneously and it collapsed to the ground, not ten yards from Mary.

It had dropped an enormous wooden club, so heavy that it made a dent where it landed (much like the troll itself). Mary wasn’t entirely sure that the creature needed a weapon at all, as the stench coming off of it was nearly enough to knock her out. She couldn’t imagine facing it indoors. The Headmaster levitated the creature and walked it toward the forest, while Sprout, Flitwick and an old witch Mary hadn’t met retreated to the castle and closed the doors.

Sean Moon appeared out of thin air and cast some sort of charm, then began reversing the spells on the younger students and sending them to the pitch with the announcement that the prefects were on their way, and would take another head-count once they arrived. Mary found Lilian when they were both visible again, and they did as they were told, discussing in hushed tones the evening’s events and whether the Revel would still happen, and if there might, just possibly, be food there.

* * *

As it so happened, there was food, but not at the Revel. Mary heard later that the Headmaster had declared that their feasts would be re-located to their common rooms, but someone, maybe Professor Snape or the seventh-year prefects, had intercepted the elves and had their food sent to the pitch instead. In what had to be one of the strangest meals Mary had ever eaten, the various Slytherin cliques had served themselves from a banquet table which appeared with a dozen elves in the middle of the field, and sat in small groups in the stands, chattering amongst themselves more freely than she had seen at any other meal.

Fred and George Weasley showed up about an hour into their odd feast. Their arrival was widely remarked-upon, but no one told them to leave when they found seats near Morgana and her friends. Several of the older students broke into the broom shed and showed off their flying skills when they had finished eating, while everyone else just sat around chatting. The moon was very high in the sky by the time one of the prefects – Rosier, Mary thought, though it could have been Burke, with the light behind him – came to a halt facing the section of the stands where most of the Slytherins were sitting.

He made his voice just loud enough that everyone could hear him say: “The hour is upon us! To the Revel!”

And then there was a sudden streaming of people out of the pitch, toward the forest and the Senior Woods.

When they arrived, Mary saw that several of the “missing” upperclassmen had apparently busied themselves building a massive bonfire and preparing some kind of ritual space. The flames of the bonfire burned white-hot – Mary couldn’t bring herself to go anywhere near it.

The same prefect (definitely Rosier, in the light of the fire), announced himself as the Master of Ceremonies, and began what Morgana later explained was an invocation of the Dead. “We are gathered here on this, the ancient day of the Dying of the Light to celebrate those who have passed beyond the Veil! We celebrate the necessity of death and the wonder of it, even as we remember those who have gone ahead! We make our sacrifices to the dead and to the Power which governs their passing! Rise up, my friends, and bow before the Deathly Power, for tonight… we dance with the dead!”

Nine upperclassmen took their places around the ritual diagram cut into the ground of the forest clearing, surrounding the bonfire. They chanted in languages Mary didn’t know, and one by one made offerings to the fire – fruit, meat, wine, some kind of hard alcohol that burned bright blue, and several other things Mary didn’t recognize. All throughout, the fire burned higher and the feeling of magic in the clearing grew clearer, plucking at the edges of her own power, edges Mary had never felt before. The lines of the diagram cut into the ground were glowing silver and… black? Could black _glow_? She felt _alive_ – more alive than she had ever felt before. Was that right? The second-to-last person in the circle cut the throat of a small, fuzzy animal and made an offering of blood, or maybe life. The presence of magic rose to a fever-pitch, almost unbearable in its intensity. The last person drew a knife sharply across her own forearm with a shouted phrase, then threw the blade into the fire.

The knife should not have spun as it did, Mary thought, but heedless of physics and natural laws, it flipped through the air and landed point-down at the very center of the inferno, and with that, the flames went _blue_ , and began to draw heat in, burning _cold_. The magic gathered in the air was screaming, streaming into the fire as though into a void. As one (and neither Mary nor Lilian could say later how they knew to do so), all the celebrants _not_ standing in the ritual circle declared, “We bear witness!” and the nine in the ritual responded “So mote it be!” and then things went very weird.

As far as Mary could tell, time seemed to stretch oddly, and there was a distinct feeling of being out of her own body. The clearing was filled with ghosts, or something like ghosts, maybe, spirits? The girl who had cut her arm before throwing the knife into the fire was in some kind of a trance – she walked into the blue fire and stood there, arms outreached, head thrown back, chanting as though to the stars. The spirits or the dead or the ghosts flitted through the students, leaving vague memories in their wake. And the students danced. There was no music, or at least none to be heard by human ears – but the magic moved them. Mary, in a brief semi-lucid moment, thought that this was quite the oddest thing she had done since she joined the magical world. And then, in a flash, the moment was over. She did not think, she simply moved, along with everyone around her, stomping and clapping and turning in time, coming together and moving apart to an unheard beat as memories of ages past flitted through her mind.

It was never clear, even afterward, how long they danced with the dead. Perhaps hours, or maybe only minutes. It seemed like forever and no time at all, as the students fell to their knees, exhausted by magic and dancing and visions which none of them could remember later. The spirits disappeared back into the fire, and it burnt itself out. The girl who stood in the flames fainted (probably), but two boys caught her before she could fall the ground.

Mary realized at some point that she was holding hands with two people, their heads together at the center of an odd triangle as they lay, flat-out on dew-soaked leaves. She raised her head just enough to see that the two people were Hermione and Lilian. She had no idea when Hermione had arrived, but she was glad she made it. She met their eyes and squeezed their palms as tightly as she could, and the three of them shared the thought, though they didn’t know how they knew it was shared, that there was something to be said for the kind of friends who could find you in the middle of a hundred other people, when the world was crashing around you and magic ruled the night, and nothing made any sense at all. Mary _knew_ , in that moment, that these girls would stand by her side, forever, maybe. Until death and beyond.

After all, there are some things you can’t share without creating some kind of bond, and coming through your first major magical ritual unscathed and brought together by mad, wild magic was obviously one of them.


	12. Chapter 11: With a Broom on the Pitch

###  November 1991

If October could be described as _lonely,_ November, or at least the beginning of it, could be described as _grey_ , at least outside the castle.The weather turned very cold. The mountains around the school became icy grey, and the lake like chilled steel. The verdant lawns of the grounds went brown, only to be covered with sparkling silver frost in the mornings. Low, heavy clouds covered the ceiling in the Great Hall, threatening snow, though the few flurries they got didn’t ever stick through the afternoons.

Inside the castle, the Quidditch season had begun. The first match was set for the first Saturday of the month, Gryffindor vs. Slytherin. Mary was very excited to see her first match, despite Hermione’s continued muttering about the ridiculousness of the snitch. Gryffindor had a new seeker, a second-year boy called Cadmus Thorpe. None of the Slytherins had seen him fly, despite their best efforts – the Gryffindor captain had convinced Madam Hooch to put anti-spying wards on the pitch. If the number of pranks the Weasley twins set on the Slytherin team was anything to judge by, though, the Gryffindors were nervous.

The Slytherins were as confident as they could be, without having seen the Gryffindor seeker in action. Marcus Flint, their captain, had increased their practices, and he and Adrian Pucey had been seen in the common room in the evenings, discussing strategies and plays with their seeker, Terrence Higgs. From what the older students were saying, if Wood, the Gryffindor captain, hadn’t changed his plays dramatically (and there was no reason to think he would have, since most of his team were veterans), they should be in a good position to win the first match of the season.

Hermione had read enough snippets of _Quidditch Through the Ages_ to Mary that she finally caved and read the whole thing herself, and she was glad she did. It was full of all sorts of interesting trivia, like the fact that every one of the seven hundred possible Quidditch fouls had been committed in the World Cup semifinals in 1473; that most serious accidents tended to happen to seekers; and that although people rarely died playing the sport, at least three referees had gone missing and turned up months later in the Sahara Desert for no apparent reason.

The upcoming Quidditch match was an interesting distraction, as far as Mary was concerned, but not nearly as interesting as the Mystery of What Happened to Professor Snape’s Leg.

Professor Snape had not, apparently, attended the Revel. According to older Slytherins, this was not entirely unusual. Their Head of House had known many people who died in the War, and did not always care to celebrate the dead. As far as anyone knew, he had only attended two Samhain Revels in the past seven years. What _was_ unusual was that the potions master did not hover around the lab the next morning criticizing their brewing techniques and warding off disasters. He sat at his desk, an incredibly sour expression on his face, and watched them like a hawk, but did not stand at any point during the lesson. Since then, whenever Mary had seen him moving between the dungeons and the Great Hall, he moved with a limp.

Mary had heard one of the Gryffindors saying that they had overheard Filch telling Mrs. Norris that Snape had gotten bitten by the three-headed dog on Halloween. At first she thought this was a perfectly reasonable explanation, but Lilian crushed the theory in about two seconds flat.

“That’s ridiculous. Cerberi aren’t like Hellhounds or werewolves or something. I mean, yeah, they can be nasty, and if they bite you, it will mess you up, but it’s not a _cursed_ bite. Professor Snape fought in the War. He’s got to be good enough to heal a cerberus bite in about three seconds. And if he couldn’t Madam Pomfrey could.”

Hermione nibbled her lip for a moment, then pointed out, “Besides, it can’t be that hard to get past it, right? I mean, you guys told me Lili sang it to sleep in about a minute. And I’m sure you could look it up somewhere in here, if you really wanted to,” she gestured at the books surrounding them, “I mean, cerberi as magical creatures might be in the Restricted Section, but muggle myths and legends aren’t, and Orpheus uses music to tame the Cerberus that guards the Underworld in a Greek myth.”

“So what did happen, then?” Mary asked, irritated.

“Well…” Hermione said slowly, “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I saw Professor Quirrell going into the Hospital Wing on my way back from the Revel. He looked pretty out of it, stumbling into walls and bleeding all over the place. I didn’t hear what he told Madam Pomfrey. Do you think, maybe… they got into a duel, or something?”

“Why _wouldn’t_ you tell us that?” Mary asked, just as Lilian scoffed: “You don’t honestly think that p-p-poor st-stut-ter-ing p-profes-s-s-sor Q-Q-Quirrell could actually stand up to Professor Snape in a duel, do you?”

“Well, I’d definitely say he got the worst of it. But he is the Defense Professor. Weren’t you the one who told me that when in doubt, the Defense Professor did it?” Hermione shot back.

And so on Friday evening, the question became: What were Professor Snape and Quirrell dueling over?

Unfortunately, no matter how much they pondered the question, they could not think of a reasonable answer.

###  Saturday, 2 November 1991

#### Quidditch Pitch

The day of the first Quidditch match dawned bright and cold. By eleven o’clock, the whole school seemed to be out in the stands, Mary, Hermione, and Lilian among them. Aerin had contrarily decided that she would rather have a nice trek around the deserted grounds, and had waved them away after a late breakfast.

The other three girls had found seats just on the border of the Slytherin and Ravenclaw sections, and would, of course, be supporting Slytherin. On the other side of the pitch, Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs were waving red and gold banners. Someone had made a flashing ‘Go Lions’ sign out of what seemed to be a bedsheet, while a group of Slytherin rebels had somehow acquired what Hermione said was an American muggle flag – it had a coiled snake in the center and read _Don’t Tread on Me_ in bold print. Tensions and excitement were high.

At half-past, both teams trooped out onto the field and, at Madam Hooch’s whistle, took to the air, the seekers circling high above the action as the chasers passed quickly among themselves. As far as Mary could tell, the Slytherin chasers were better, but the Gryffindor keeper was excellent, and the first goal went to Gryffindor. The red-and-yellow half of the stands erupted in cheers while Slytherin booed. Mary caught Hermione rolling her eyes. She still thought that Quidditch was a stupid sport.

About half an hour into the game, the Slytherin seeker, Terry Higgs, dived after an unseen target, and the new Gryffindor seeker chased after him, only to be lured into a trap – both bludgers came pelting toward him just as he was forced to dodge between two of the chasers – Marcus Flint and Katie Bell. He avoided one of them, but the other hit him squarely in the left arm.

Madam Hooch allowed a time-out, and it was determined that the boy, Cadmus Thorpe, would be allowed to continue after his captain cast some sort of diagnostic spell on him, according to the announcer. She also gave a foul to Gryffindor, even though, according to Hermione (and from what Mary could remember of _Quidditch Through the Ages_ , that move was perfectly legal. Everyone returned to the air, and Alicia Spinnet took the penalty shot. She scored, to Gryffindor’s approval, and the game continued, the chasers and beaters on both sides now aiming a bit more viciously at their opponents.

The Gryffindor keeper blocked one Slytherin attempt, but then Adrian Pucey scored their first goal, bringing the score to 10-20. This seemed to irritate the commentator, who started making ruder comments about Slytherin. He had already been talking almost as much about the attractiveness of the Gryffindor chasers as the actual activities of the match, but after the goal, he started saying things like he hoped a bludger broke Flint’s nose. It wasn’t until Professor McGonagall yelled “Jordan” that Mary realized the announcer was Fred and George’s friend from the train. She wondered why they didn’t have a Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff do it, since the Gryffindor clearly couldn’t be an impartial commentator when his house was playing, but shrugged it off when he said, “Is that the snitch?”

The crowd shifted as someone called out from the Hufflepuff section, “There, by the goal-post!” Every eye in the stadium fixed on a glint of gold not ten feet from the ground by the Slytherin goals. The Gryffindor seeker was closer. He dived, Higgs hot on his tail, but was so wrapped up in the dive that he failed to notice a bludger aimed at him from just below his starting point off his eight o’clock. He flew straight into it, the iron ball meeting his left arm again with a crack. He went off course, nearly hitting Higgs, and the snitch disappeared.

All of the chasers had stopped their play, hanging in mid-air to watch the seekers dive. Slytherin was in possession, and managed to score once more while the Gryffindors were distracted by their seeker’s condition, but before the time-out was called to get him to the ground safely.

Wood, the Gryffindor captain, was arguing with Madam Hooch and Marcus Flint, and looked like he was about to storm off the field when she declared that his seeker could _not_ play with a shattered elbow. The somewhat dejected Gryffindor team returned to the air, and play resumed.

Mary couldn’t help but ask why, since Slytherin was bound to win, and a nearby older Ravenclaw explained that the individual matches didn’t matter for the cup so much as the overall score of each team at the end of the season. Even though Slytherin was basically guaranteed to win this match, Gryffindor could still moderate the damage if they could manage to get ahead on goals, and any points they could score would be helpful in the long run, no matter how thoroughly the Slytherins stomped them. This explanation actually mollified Hermione, who had been pouting for much of the game over the issue of the snitch and the unfairness of the entire game. As a tournament with a running score, though, she said it actually made some small bit of sense.

Unfortunately for Gryffindor, their team was shaken and upset with the loss of their seeker, and Slytherin managed to score twice more before Higgs finally caught the snitch, not fifty feet from Mary and her friends, snagging it neatly out of the air between the opposing beaters, neither of whom had a bludger to send at him. Slytherin won, 190-20. The nearer Weasley actually called out his thanks to the Slytherin seeker.

When Mary asked why, Lilian said it was because Higgs _could_ have refused to catch it, and let the chasers just rack up points all day. It had been known to happen. She said that in Sean’s first year, in the Hufflepuff-Slytherin match, the Hufflepuff seeker was taken out, and the Slytherins let the score go up to over five-hundred on each side before the Slytherin seeker actually bothered to start _looking_ for the snitch. Hermione asked why they wouldn’t have done something similar today, but the Slytherins could only shrug. “Too cold, maybe?” Mary suggested, shivering in her cloak. A nearby Ravenclaw cast a Warming Charm on her, and the other girls laughed as they started filing out of the stands.

Mary’s take-away from her first-ever Quidditch match was that she definitely wanted to learn to fly like that. The chasers had been impressive, but Higgs’ ability to lure his fellow seeker into traps that he only narrowly escaped himself was just amazing. Much as the Weasleys and Morgana had been impressed by her diving abilities, there was clearly more to the seeker’s position than just that. She would have to go out for the team next year and see if she could make the reserves.

###  Friday, 8 November 1991

#### Quidditch Pitch

The flying class after the first Quidditch match was much more exciting than those that had gone before. Everyone, even Neville, now had the basics down, so Madam Hooch was allowing those who wanted to go out for Quidditch the following year to play Quodpot (Quidditch without the snitch). Mary, and (to her surprise) Draco begged to be allowed to play with the snitch as well, but Madam Hooch would not allow it, as she did not think they would be able to recapture it within the class period. She set the two of them to playing follow-the-leader instead, and allowed them to weave and dodge between the Quodpot players for a more realistic, Quidditch-like experience.

So far it was going better than expected. Mary had _almost_ managed to make Draco crash into the ground after a seventy-foot race straight _down_ ( _nearly_ a Wronski Feint, but not quite, since he didn’t crash) and now he was in the lead, flying loops around the chasers on the field. She had just narrowly avoided a bludger when her broom started to shake violently. It lurched, free-falling several feet before picking up again, and she screamed. The damn thing was trying to _buck her off_. She tried to head for the ground, but it wouldn’t respond. She was thirty feet up, and only getting higher.

“Somebody _help_!”

Nobody seemed to hear her, though. Even Madam Hooch, who had been keeping an eye on the Slytherin seeker games, was no longer watching her, and Malfoy didn’t seem to notice that he’d lost his tail. She looked down and saw that one of the beaters somehow, at the worst possible time, had managed to nail one of the chasers in the face, and everyone, even the students who hadn’t been playing Quodpot, was preoccupied with making sure Millicent made it safely to the ground.

She shrieked as loudly as she could, her voice breaking, but it did no good. She was being dragged higher and higher, the broom still trying wildly to shake her off. She swallowed hard. There was really only one thing for it – she would have to jump, and sooner rather than later. No one was going to rescue her, and the broom wasn’t going to let her down gently.

She felt like there was ice running through her veins. She couldn’t stop thinking of Neville, pale and scared, broken wrist clutched to his chest, and everyone laughing because he’d gotten hurt.

No! She couldn’t think like that! What had Lils said? That magic will save you if you expect it to? That Neville _shouldn’t_ have gotten hurt? But she was _much_ higher now than he had been – almost _twice_ as high. The broom dropped, then rose steeply again, still shaking and shuddering and twitching beneath her hands. She was nearly even with the middle of the stands, forty-five feet and rising.

There was nothing for it. She had to jump. _Had_ to. She would do it on the next drop – the lower she was, the better. She clutched the handle as hard as she could and slipped her weight off of the broom, hanging by her hands alone.

_I will not get hurt_ , she thought as firmly as she could. _I will float down lightly. Magic will save me. I will_ not _get hurt. The air will support me, the ground will be soft, and I will_ not _get hurt._

The broom seemed to sense weakness, and redoubled its efforts to shake her off, now jerking sharply to one side and then the other. Then it dropped nearly ten feet and stopped suddenly. Her hands nearly slipped from the shaft as it tried to tear itself away from her.

_Now or never_ she thought, and then, deliberately _not_ letting herself thing about what she was actually _doing_ , she made herself as limp as possible and then… let go.

_I will not get hurt, not get hurt, not get_ – WHAM!

She hit the ground and her legs crumpled beneath her. The impact drove the air out of her lungs and she tried to roll with it, protecting her head and letting the force pass through her, as she had learned to do on the all-too-frequent occasions that Dudley and his gang cornered her and kicked her until they were bored. She lay still on her back, breathing heavily and reflexively testing her limbs, even as she watched the broom continue to sail away into the stands. It wasn’t twitching at all now, the bloody thing.

Everything _seemed_ to be more or less intact. She would know, she thought, if anything was actually broken. She risked raising her head just as Madam Hooch ran up to her, the useless bint. Where had she been, when Mary was trapped fifty feet up on a broom that was trying to kill her? Where had _everyone_ been? _Someone should have heard me, or seen me, or_ something, she thought angrily as the Quidditch referee tried to prevent her sitting up. Lilian was there, too, and Blaise and Draco and even Pansy looked somewhat concerned.

“Back away, students, let’s give her some space!” Hooch ordered.

“’m fine,” Mary mumbled.

“Just lie still, Miss Potter,” the teacher said in what she probably thought was a soothing tone. “That was a nasty fall.”

“Oh, now you notice,” the girl tried to say, but her tongue didn’t seem to want to work right, and as she struggled desperately to sit up against Madam Hooch’s restraining hand, greyness crept in around the edges of her vision, and then there was nothing.

#### Hogwarts’ Hospital Wing

Consciousness returned with a sudden lurch. Mary’s eyes flew open. She was in a too-white room, and there was an unfamiliar woman pointing a wand at her. She scrabbled away instinctively before she realized that Lilian was there too, holding her hand and petting her hair.

“It’s okay. You’re in hospital,” Lilian whispered. “You’re fine. It’s all fine.”

“Hello, Miss Potter,” the unknown witch said in a low, genuinely soothing voice (quite unlike Madam Hooch’s attempt). “I’m Poppy Pomfrey, and you are in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing. You’ve had quite a nasty fall. Tell me, what is the last thing you remember?”

Mary managed, after a moment, to calm her frantic breathing, twitching her fingers and toes, and shifting her arms and legs to make sure everything was intact. Nothing hurt. That couldn’t be right. At the very least, she should have massive bruises from where she’d hit. The one time she’d fallen fifteen feet when Piers pushed her out of that tree, she had been black and blue for _days_.

“My broom,” she said finally. “It was trying to shake me off, and kept going higher, and no one noticed when I screamed, it was like some sort of bad nightmare. So I did the only thing I could think of and when it dropped down, I let go. I remember hitting the ground, and I was pretty sure nothing was broken, and I was just about to sit up when Madam Hooch came over and she was holding me down. I tried to ask where she was when the broom was trying to kill me, but I don’t think she understood. And she wouldn’t let me sit up and I was panicking a little, and then things went kind of grey and fuzzy, like they do when you haven’t slept or eaten in too long, and then I passed out and woke up here. Why am I not sore? How long was I out?”

Madam Pomfrey just gave her surprisingly composed-looking patient a speculative look.

“About half an hour. It’s half five,” Lilian answered. “Hooch levitated you here in the same position you fell. I think she was afraid you’d hurt your back. Madam Pomfrey here got you into bed and did some diagnostics and said you weren’t actually hurt, just bruised up a bit, and put some bruise balm on you, and then woke you up.”

Mary took a deep breath, finding herself considerably calmer, knowing that she hadn’t been unconscious for days. “Bruise balm? Good stuff.”

Lilian laughed, “Yeah, it’s great. Too bad it’s a fifth-year potion. I’d love to know how to make it.”

“So can I go?” Mary asked the still-silent matron. “I’m starving, and if there’s nothing actually wrong…”

“No, I’m afraid not, Miss Potter,” said Madam Pomfrey, finally shaking herself out of whatever little reverie she was in. “You are physically fine, but you passed out from acute magical exhaustion. Your magic protected you from the fall itself, but you used up all your reserves in doing so. It is standard procedure for cases of magical exhaustion to stay for observation overnight, until we are sure that there is no other underlying problem causing a constant drain.”

“But… you know it was the fall,” Mary pointed out.

“I’m sorry Miss Potter, but there are no exceptions, even when the immediate cause is readily apparent.”

“If I cooperate, can I go to dinner?”

The matron smiled at the weak attempt at bargaining. “No, but I will allow you to have guests until curfew, which is two hours later than normal visiting hours.”

Mary slumped back into her pillow, too tired to argue. “ _Fine_ ,” she said, in her most put-upon tone. “Lils, can you tell Hermione what happened? And I guess I’ll see you after dinner.”

“Okay,” Lilian said quietly, squeezing Mary’s hand. “I’m really glad you’re not hurt. I’ll be back with Jeanie in an hour or so, ‘kay?”

“Yeah, after dinner, like I said,” Mary said with a confused smile.

Lilian seemed very reluctant to go, but eventually she did, with much looking back and biting of lips.

“What on earth was that about?” Mary wondered aloud as the other girl finally left the ward.

This startled a laugh from Madam Pomfrey. “Have you never had someone worry about you, child?”

_Umm, no?_ thought Mary, but she said, “But you said I was fine, right?”

“Of course you are,” said the healer, patting Mary’s hand. “Now, I have paperwork to file, but I’ll have an elf bring you a dinner tray, and then you should try to get a bit of sleep before your friends get back.”

Mary nodded, and the healer excused herself. A tray appeared a few minutes later. Cammy brought it herself, wanting to check that Mary was okay, but she had to leave almost at once, since dinner was about to start in the Great Hall and all hands were needed in the kitchens. Mary assured the elf that she would be fine, and inhaled the food, hardly paying attention to what it was. No sooner had she finished than exhaustion overtook her again, and she fell into a much more natural sleep.

* * *

“Do you think we should wake her?” a voice whispered near Mary’s head.

“Madam Pomfrey said not to!” was the hissed reply from her other side. “She needs her rest!”

“But she needs to know what we found out, too, and curfew is only half an hour away.”

“We can tell her in the morning. It’s not like it’s going to change.”

“But Her _mi_ one…”

“Hey guys,” Mary said scratchily, prising her eyes open.

Hermione practically threw herself on the smaller girl. “I’m so glad you’re okay! Lilian didn’t tell me until after dinner! If I had known!”

“Maia, it’s fine. I was sleeping, remember. It’s okay. I’m fine. Your hair is suffocating me.”

Lilian laughed and Hermione sat up, slightly pink. “I was just worried, that’s all.”

“Thanks?” Mary wasn’t really sure what to say to such a declaration. She honestly wasn’t certain anyone had ever expressed concern for her wellbeing before. Even when Dudley had broken her wrist, Aunt Petunia had acted more like it was an imposition than anything else. Both girls were giving Mary somewhat concerned looks now, so she quickly changed the subject. “What did you want to tell me?”

“Oh, you were awake for that?” Lilian asked.

“Just barely. What is it?”

“The third-years,” Hermione explained, “were complaining at dinner that Quirrell cancelled their class today. Apparently he was there for all the others and then just… cancelled, for no reason. I mean, he’s obviously not _here._ ”

“It’s the last one of the day,” Lilian said. “Morgan and her friends confirmed, though they weren’t as put out about it as the Ravens.”

“So, what, you think Quirrell had something to do with this?” Mary kept her voice down, despite the fact that she very much wanted to scream.

“I’ve seen you fly, Elizabeth,” Lilian said seriously, “and there is no way you just lost control and fell from, what forty, fifty feet? Plus why didn’t any of us notice anything? I bet you _anything_ someone cast a really strong notice-me-not on you and then cursed your broom.”

“But Quirrell? Why would he want to kill me?”

“Maybe he knows we know he’s up to something,” Hermione suggested.

“But we _don’t_ know he’s up to something. We _think_ he and Professor Snape were dueling over something at Halloween, but…”

“Then he probably thinks we know more than we do,” Lilian said. “This is proof, I’m telling you. He’s _up to something_.”

“But cancelling a class just to come and curse my broom? It’s not exactly, you know… a crime of the moment, is it?”

“A crime of opportunity?”

“Yes, that.”

“Well, no,” Hermione admitted.

“It could have looked like an accident. Everyone knows you and Draco are competing to see who can do the stupidest thing on a broom,” Lilian pointed out.

“I almost had him with that Wronski Feint,” Mary defended herself.

“Not the point!” Lilian snapped back.

“If he wanted to make it look like an accident, it would be so much better to just trip me on the main staircase or something, though,” Mary said. “It’s not like that didn’t almost happen once already. I mean, if he thinks we _all_ know something, then maybe he’s saving that for one of you, but…” The girls blanched. “Oh, sorry,” she added belatedly, realizing the callousness of her last statement.

Hermione smacked her in the shoulder, and then said to Lilian, “She’s right, though. If he thinks we know something, he’ll be after all of us.”

Lilian looked a little scared. “So what do we do, then?”

“I think we should tell a professor,” Hermione said. “A _real_ professor, I mean.”

“What would you tell them?” Mary asked. The other girls stared at her. “Seriously, keeping in mind that _I_ don’t even one hundred percent believe you, how are you going to convince _any_ other professor that Quirrell is out to get us?”

“We can tell them…” Hermione hesitated.

“Exactly,” said Mary. “We’ve got nothing.” She flopped back into her pillows with a sigh.

“So what do we do?” Lilian asked again.

Mary didn’t even sit up again, staring at the ceiling. “Don’t go anywhere alone, but don’t do anything out of the ordinary, just make small, gradual changes to your schedule until there’s nowhere for him to ambush you. See if you can learn a good shield charm. Don’t do anything really risky. And apparently don’t fly any higher than you’re willing to fall.”

Lilian sniggered at that, and Mary looked up. “How do you know all that?” Hermione asked.

“It’s common sense, isn’t it?” Mary responded. The looks on her friends’ faces said it wasn’t, though, and then she realized, and spoke before thinking: “You guys have never been hunted before, have you?”

“Umm… no.” Hermione said this as though it should be perfectly obvious, and in all fairness, to most people, it probably was.

“You’ve been… hunted?” Lilian asked quietly.

Mary tried to act as though it wasn’t a big deal that their childhoods had obviously been so fundamentally different, but she couldn’t very well say nothing now – she’d basically already given it away. “Not by, like, an adult, or anything. But… yeah. It was my cousin’s favorite game. Cousin Crushing. He and his friends… they would follow me around all summer, trying to trap me where they could beat the crap out of me until they got bored.” Lilian, and Hermione especially, looked horrified at this explanation. “Guys, it’s not a big deal.”

“Yes, it is!” Hermione said fiercely.

“No, Maia, it’s not. I swear. I don’t live with them anymore, remember? I never have to see the piggy little brat again if I don’t want to. It’s _fine_.”

“Liz,” Lilian said quietly, “No one should have to grow up hunted in their own home.”

“Well, I was!” Mary snapped. “ _Should_ doesn’t matter, and _none_ of it matters, now, anyway, because it’s _over_.”

“Mary,” Hermione said, drawing out the proper name she hardly ever used, “It’s just…”

“Just what?” Mary crossed her arms, fuming silently. She wished she had just kept her mouth shut.

The older girl sighed. “Nothing.” Lilian looked like she wanted to say something else, but Hermione caught her eye and shook her head.

“Fine,” Mary demanded. _Say it’s fine, Hermione. Say you’ll let this go._

“Fine,” Hermione repeated somewhat sadly. “So you think we should just do what we normally do, but never go anywhere alone?”

“Yes,” Mary said firmly, letting go of her irritable defensiveness. “I mean, what else can we do, really?”

“I guess,” Lilian said quietly. “You need to hurry up and get out of here, though, because I don’t want to hang around with the rest of our year.”

“Oh, come on. Blaise and Daphne aren’t _that_ bad,” Mary said with a slightly forced smile.

“No, they’re _just_ stuck up, not stuck up jerks,” said Lilian, making a face.

“Madam Pomfrey said I should be out of here tomorrow,” Mary said, and Lilian grinned.

“Good,” she said, squeezing Mary’s hand tightly.

Just then, as though summoned by the speaking of her name, the matron bustled over, telling the others that they had to return to their dorms, and flicking the curtains closed around Mary’s bed. They said their goodbyes hurriedly, and Madam Pomfrey herded the others out of the ward before returning to run a final diagnostic charm on Mary and turn out the lights.

###  Saturday, 23 November 1991

#### The Forbidden Corridor

The next week and a half fell into a monotonous routine. The girls attended classes and meals, and spent their free time in the library. No one went anywhere alone Hermione started associating with Padma Patil and Su Li, who she said were nice enough, but made for stressful company, as they were very competitive when it came to marks and so on. Nothing strange or dangerous happened to any of them.

It was on Thursday in the third week of November when Lilian broached the idea of trying to enter the Forbidden Corridor again. Her argument centered on the fact that she was bored just sitting around and waiting for Quirrell to attack them, and weren’t they _curious_?

Even Hermione had to admit that yes, she _was_ curious, and yes, she _had_ agreed to go once before, and they hadn’t done it. Mary was swayed by the boredom argument (she still wasn’t entirely convinced that Quirrell was really after any of them at all), and when Lilian mentioned it to Aerin, her sister’s only response was: “Huzzah! An _adventure_!”

They decided to wait until Saturday to make their move, so that they could sleep in the morning of and sneak out properly that night. Aerin had pointed out to them once before that outside, people paid less attention to your antics during the day, and it was easy enough to sneak into the Forest for an afternoon, but they had learned that in the Castle, and especially near the Forbidden Corridor, it was much easier to wander around unquestioned at night, simply because Filch had to patrol the whole building, and couldn’t just watch _that_ door, which was located inconveniently near his office.

In a scene eerily reminiscent of the previous month’s attempt, the girls met at the entrance to Ravenclaw tower, on the fifth floor, just after eleven. They dodged Filch on the fourth floor, and made their way successfully to the Corridor. Hermione (who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket) managed the unlocking charm, and the other three began humming the tune they had practiced before their first attempt. They slipped into the room, the giant dog already calmed by their humming, and Hermione locked the door again behind them.

Aerin directed the four of them between humming and pausing, moving them around the room and starting to hum again, luring the dog off of the trap door. When it was finally where she wanted it, she and Lilian started singing the proper melody and harmony of the song, and the dog fell unconscious in about fifteen seconds. Hermione opened the trap door and poked her head in, shining her lit wand around to see what was there.

“I can’t see anything,” she whispered to the others.

Aerin joined her fellow Ravenclaw in examining the trap door, and sent a spark of blue fire falling into the darkness.

“Looks like about forty feet,” Hermione whispered.

Aerin gave the others a mischievous look. “How good are your Hover Charms?”

The first years shrugged, and Hermione, who was the only one not humming, replied, “Good enough.” She had helped the others practice after Halloween, so she should know.

Aerin grinned and incanted, “ _Wingardium leviosa,_ ” her wand swishing and flicking directly at Hermione before the younger girl could object. The bushy-haired girl floated down into the blue-lit darkness, landing safely on the floor at the bottom of the shaft.

“Mary, you’re next, then you’re going to have to sing as loud as you can while I lower you, sis, since I can’t while I’m holding the charm, and then I’ll take over and stand over the trap door while you all cast the spell on me and bring me down.”

“Are you sure?” Mary whispered.

“Of course. I’ll even close the trap after us. It will be fine.” And then the older girl whispered the charm, and Mary was suddenly and incredibly uncomfortably weightless, floating into the darkness toward the waiting Hermione. Mary lit her wand as she descended, and saw that the walls and floor were covered in vines, shrinking away from the light and the heat of the little blue flame.

“I’m good,” she called back to Aerin as her feet touched the stone, and the spell released her. A moment later, they heard Lilian start singing, and then she appeared, floating down to them.

“So how are we going to get Aer? We can’t exactly cast at someone we can’t see.” Hermione pointed out.

“She said she’ll stand over the entrance so we should have a straight shot,” Mary explained.

The Ravenclaw shuddered. She still didn’t particularly like heights. “That was awful,” she said quietly as Lilian drew near.

“I know,” Mary commiserated. “Nothing at all like flying.”

Lilian touched down, still singing, and Mary called up that she had arrived. They heard Aerin’s voice join in the chorus from far above, and then the slight, distant moonlight diffracted through the trap door was blocked as the older girl carefully placed one foot on either side of it. The first-years cast their charms at her, and she began to float, her feet clearly no longer holding her in the trap door. She was still singing.

“What now?” Lilian asked.

“Just think of where you want her to go, and how fast you want her to get there,” Hermione explained. When Mary and Lilian still looked nervous, she continued, “We practiced this, remember? Slowly now, bring her to us, the same speed she dropped us down here.”

The Slytherins nodded, and focused their concentration on the second-year suspended above them. She began to float down to them, summoning the trap door shut behind her and lighting her wand. She touched down lightly, but Mary’s heart was in her throat the entire time.

“See?” Hermione said brightly, “Nothing to it!”

Aerin laughed, and taught her fellow Ravenclaw the incantation for the little blue fire. Between the two of them, they cleared a path between the vines that Aerin said were called Devil’s Snare. “You’ll get to it by the end of the year in Herbology,” she explained, wandering off down the corridor that was the only way forward.

The passage sloped down, to what Mary thought was probably the Second Dungeon Level. There was a subtle difference in the moistness of the air in the first, second, and third levels, and this was similar to the Slytherin common room.

“Do you hear that?” Lilian asked after a moment.

“Maybe if you’d shut up,” Aerin teased. Lilian’s hearing, as they all knew from their explorations of the castle and grounds, was the best in the group. She always heard Mrs. Norris at least half a minute before anyone else.

“It sounds like wings,” the younger girl said.

It did sound like wings, when they got close enough. The passage turned, and they found themselves entering a _very_ brightly lit chamber, with a thirty-foot arched ceiling, filled with little glittering, jewel-like birds. Mary shrugged and went to try the large wooden door on the other side of the room. It was locked.

“Those can’t be real,” Hermione said, looking around.

“No,” Aerin agreed. “Constructs or something, probably.”

Mary’s _alohomora_ wasn’t working. “Hey, come make sure I’m doing this right!” she called over to the others. She was, but the door wouldn’t budge.

“So…” Mary said, somewhat at a loss.

“These construct bird-things, they can’t just be decoration,” Hermione said, just as Lilian, who had been inspecting the rest of the room cried out, “Look! Brooms!”

“So you think we have to catch a bird?” Mary asked Hermione and Aerin, as Lilian fetched over the three brooms that had been stashed in an unapparent nook.

“You three go ahead,” Hermione said, looking slightly green at the thought of flying again so soon after the levitation into the Devil’s Snare Room.

But then Aerin, who had been looking at the lock on the door carefully, said, “No, I think we have to catch a _key_. _Accio proper key_!” she demanded with an impatient swirl of her wand, and one of the flock separated itself from its fellows, flying to her hand. She grasped it tightly, careful not to damage its bright blue wings. It was large and silver, and the engraving on it matched the key plate on the door.

“That somehow seems way too easy,” Mary said, staring in disbelief.

“Well, it’s a fourth-year charm, but it’s really useful, so I figured it’s always worth a try, right?” Aerin said, unlocking the door and releasing the key. “And the Devil’s Snare is a first-year plant, too,” she pointed out as they dragged the wooden door open.

The next room was dark, but as soon as they entered, it was flooded with light from no particular source, much like the previous one. The floor was black and white, like a giant chess board, if a chess board had squares three feet across. There didn’t seem to be anything else in the room, and the door on the other side of it wasn’t locked. It was much smaller than the door they had entered through, just the size of a normal door.

They peered in carefully, but withdrew their heads almost at once.

“I know that smell,” Mary said, looking at Lilian.

She nodded in confirmation. “Troll.”

“There’s a _troll_ in the next room?” Hermione sounded aghast.

“It definitely smells like one,” Mary said.

“That must be why this door is so small,” Aerin speculated. “So it can’t get you if you need to retreat…”

“We have to fight a _troll_ to go on?” Hermione sounded like she would very much rather leave.

“Maybe we can sneak past it,” Aerin suggested. “Do either of you know the spells the Slytherins use for sneaking around?”

“No,” Mary admitted. “Morgana told me they’re all OWL level, so we need to be at least third-year to have a hope of managing them. Something about core stability or something.” Hermione and Aerin nodded as though that made sense. Presumably the Ravenclaws had heard it before as they tried to read ahead.

“I think trolls are diurnal,” Aerin suggested. “It was dark in there, so it might be asleep.”

“I’m _not_ going to try to sneak past a troll in the dark,” Hermione said firmly. “We’d probably walk right into it.”

“I wouldn’t walk into _anything_ that smells like that!” Mary said.

“What about this,” Lilian said suddenly. “We take the brooms from the key room and fly across? Trolls are fast, but stupid and clumsy. Even Hermione could out-fly a troll.”

“Good thinking, little sis!”

“Yeah!” Mary was almost as enthusiastic as Aerin, who was practically jumping up and down. “We can just avoid it! Maybe send some sparks and move some rocks and stuff around on the other side of the room to distract it, and we wouldn’t even have to deal with it.”

“I don’t know, guys.” Hermione was clearly hesitant about her flying abilities.

“You can double up with me,” Mary offered. “We’re small enough, it would be fine. All you have to do is hold on to my waist.”

Hermione wrung her fingers together a bit more, but eventually caved. “Fine. I hope you all know what you’re doing, though.”

Lilian ran back to fetch the brooms, and (after Aerin went to see what was taking so long and retrieved the key for the two of them again) they finally mounted up. Lilian and Mary (with Hermione crushing her waist) hovered just on the chess side of the door while Aerin opened it and led the way inside. As soon as she left the floor, the light went out around them. There was no light in the next chamber at all. The second-year tried touching down, in case you had to walk into the room to make the lights come on, like the checkered floor room, but nothing happened.

They rose as high as they could and had a furious, whispered debate about using the bluebell flames or their wands to light the chamber, which Mary interrupted by hissing, “Our wands would show us up, and the blue fire would give the troll just as much advantage as us, plus it would know where the fire was coming from! We might as well just yell _lucernae_ if…” she stopped talking as torches burst into flame all around the chamber. The girls looked around frantically, but there was no troll to be seen.

“Well, I feel like an idiot,” Aerin said, returning to the ground.

The others nodded in agreement and walked across the empty (though smelly) chamber.

“I guess… the troll from Halloween must have been here?” Hermione suggested.

“Could have been,” Lilian shrugged. “No idea how it would have gotten in or out, but yeah, I guess.”

No one had anything else to say about that, and they passed into the next room in silence.

There were seven bottles sitting on a table with a parchment scroll, and an empty doorway standing on the other side of the chamber.

As Aerin, who was last, crossed the threshold into the room black flames erupted in the door they needed to pass through, and purple in the doorway behind them.

The four girls looked carefully around the room before approaching the table.

Aerin unrolled the scroll and laughed. Hermione peered over her shoulder. “Brill! So it’s just a logic puzzle?” It took the Ravenclaws about ten seconds to tell the Slytherins that the smallest bottle would get them through the black flames, and the large round bottle on the right hand side would get them back through the purple.

Aerin was about to drink from the little bottle when Mary stopped her. “Wait a second!”

“What?”

“This room is potions, right? So Professor Snape probably designed it?”

“Yes, most likely,” Hermione said, clearly not understanding why that should matter.

“Oh!” Lilian got it.

“Do you _really_ trust that if _Professor Snape_ was guarding something, he would _actually_ leave the answer to the riddle right there in front of you?”

“Nope!” Lilian said cheerfully.

“He could have done. A lot of the greatest wizards haven’t an ounce of logic – they’d be stuck here forever.”

“But it’s _Snape_. He’s _Slytherin_! As much as I like to tell people we’re not all lying manipulative slimy gits, I’m pretty sure that he _would_ lie to protect… whatever the obstacle course is guarding.”

“Yeah,” Lilian added, “and it’s not like he doesn’t understand logic or people. He would probably figure anyone who could figure out the puzzle would drink that one right off, and anyone who couldn’t would get stuck or poison themselves or something.”

“Let me see the clue,” Mary demanded, snatching the scroll. “Three of these are supposed to be deadly? Yeah, no way. Who’s to say this is an honest clue? Or that someone else hasn’t mixed them up since the last time they checked on it. We can’t be the only people who’ve made it down here. It wasn’t even that hard, and we’re first years! No.”

“I’m a second year,” Aerin pointed out, still holding the bottle.

“You two are assuming that they actually want to _protect_ whatever’s on the other side of the fire,” Hermione argued. “We _are_ first – and second – years. It was _really easy_ for us to get in here. I agree that Snape –” “ _Professor_ Snape,” the Slytherins corrected together. “Fine, _Professor_ Snape, would lie if he really wanted to protect something, but based on the other obstacles, do you really think they’re trying?”

“She has a point,” Lilian said, biting her bottom lip nervously. “I mean, look at the cerberus – they look like good guard dogs, but they’re really easy to get past. And all the obstacles have been like that, really.”

“Lils, I thought you were on _my_ side,” Mary complained.

“So wait, you guys think this is all, what, some kind of diversion, or test?” Aerin asked.

Hermione shrugged, “It could be.” Lilian nodded.

“Hmmm… So should I drink it, or not?”

“No,” Mary said firmly. “Even if it _is_ a diversion, I can still see that doing something horrible to you. At least let us look around first. Maybe it’s like the troll, and you don’t even really need the potion.”

“What, a psych-out?” asked Hermione.

“It would be his style,” Lilian nodded.

The four poked around in every corner of the room (there was nothing else to be found), approaching the fires (the purple one was hot, the black one was not), and testing the black flames by poking the end of the scroll into it. It burst into normal, fire-colored flames at once, which were real and hot, and didn’t go out until Hermione stomped on the clue.

“So, yes, then,” Hermione said drily. “We actually do need some kind of potion to get across the flames.”

Mary sighed. “Apparently. What were the first few lines again?”

“Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,” Hermione recited. “Two of us will help you, which ever you would find. One among us seven will help you move ahead. Another will transport the drinker back instead.”

“Do you really want to trust that you’re supposed to _drink_ that, and not pour it on the flames? If it’s even the right one, I’m still not convinced of that. And if we are supposed to drink it, how much is enough? Do you think there’s enough for all of us, or is that for one person? I don’t know how I can make this any clearer – this is a _bad choice_ ,” Mary argued.

Lilian sighed. “She’s right. If we knew what this fire was, or what the potion was supposed to do, or anything about it, then maybe I’d say yes, but… I vote no, too.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?” Aerin demanded of her younger sister. “The same arguments apply to the potion to go back, as well, except the clue said you definitely drink that one.”

“It also said we’d stay here forevermore,” Hermione pointed out. “And I’m pretty sure they’re not just letting students stick around here forever. Someone would come get us. …I think I have to say no, as well, actually, since that part of the clue was false, the rest of it might have been as well.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Mary said. Three on one – Aerin was outvoted.

“But Aer does have a point – what are we supposed to do? Just wait to be rescued?”

Lilian, who had been sitting on the floor watching the argument progress for nearly fifteen minutes and trying to choose a side, spoke up again. “We could probably call an elf. They can go anywhere in the castle, right?”

“Excellent idea, Lils!” Mary said, and before anyone else could make an argument against it, she yelled, “Cammy!”

The elf appeared in the room half a second later. “Miss Mary? Why is you in sneaky dungeon trap?”

“Erm, we couldn’t decide if we should trust the clue, and we decided we’d better not. Could you help us get out?”

“Of course Cammy can.” The little elf grinned, and the five of them appeared in the entrance hall with a snap of her fingers. “And now Cammy thinkses young misses is meant to beings off to bed, yes?”

Mary sighed, “Yes. Thank you very much, Cammy.”

“Is nothing, Miss Mary.”

The girls sneaked rather despondently back to their rooms, still wondering what was meant to be beyond the black flames, the Ravenclaws resolving to look up that black fire and its counter-potion as soon as possible, and the Slytherins wondering what the point of such a diversion might possibly be.

###  Sunday, 24 November 1991

None of the quartet of explorers made it to breakfast the following morning, but all of them were present when four small intra-school owls presented them individually with notes at lunch time. When they compared, they were all the same:

_Report to the Charms Classroom at 1:15pm today to meet with your Head of House._

Mary let her head fall to the table with a dull thud as Lilian said, “Bullocks.”

* * *

The girls reported, as ordered, to find Professor Flitwick waiting for them. Professor Snape was lurking on the other side of the open door, and flicked it closed behind them with a wave of his hand.

“Sit,” he commanded, and they scrambled into the nearest available chairs. Mary thought Professor Flitwick might be hiding a smile, though that might have been because she had never seen the tiny, jolly man looking so serious.

“Who among you,” Professor Snape said silkily, “would like to explain to me why a house elf informed Professor Flitwick and myself that _four_ of our students were found last night, out of bounds, in a corridor which, I believe, you were _expressly_ informed, it would be near-certain death to enter?”

None of the girls said a word. Even Hermione knew better than to answer this question.

“Miss Granger!” the potions professor rounded on the girl widely considered the weakest link in their quartet, so far as revealing information went. She flinched. “Why were you out of bounds last night?”

Mary didn’t blame the older girl for caving under the force of the professor’s glare. “Curiosity, sir,” she admitted after a bare minute of scrutiny, squirming in her seat.

Professor Snape turned to his next victim “Miss Moon?”

“Adventure, sir,” Aerin whispered.

“An answer I would expect from a Gryffindor,” the Slytherin scoffed. “Miss Moon,” he said, turning to Lilian, “What most essential rule did you break last night?”

Lilian hung her head. “Slytherin House Rule Number Two, sir.” Okay, Professor Flitwick was definitely trying not to smirk.

The professor said nothing, turning finally to Mary. “Miss… Potter…,” he said, drawing her name out slowly. “ _Why_ were you caught out of bounds last night?”

Mary held out as long as she could under his merciless stare, but finally blurted out a true answer: “Because we didn’t trust you.”

Professor Snape froze. “Explain.”

“We made it into that chamber with the fire and the potions, and we knew you had to have designed it, because it was _potions_ , and as far as we could tell, the fire was real, unlike the troll, and they,” she waved a hand at the Ravenclaws, “figured out the puzzle in about ten seconds, but we… I… I told them they couldn’t drink the potion, because we didn’t know what it was, and we couldn’t trust that the clue was true, or the order was right, and you would definitely lie about _any_ of that to trick us, sir, if you were really trying to stop someone, and we argued for a while about whether you really _were_ trying to stop people, because the other obstacles weren’t really that hard, or if you were trying to psych us out and we just… decided that we couldn’t trust you. Sir.”

Professor Snape unfroze, turning his unblinking stare on the other girls. “Is this true?”

They nodded, refusing to look up.

The professor turned back to his green-eyed first year with an expression which might, just possibly, on the face of any other man, have been considered the tiniest of smiles. She met his eye defiantly. “Five points to Slytherin, Miss Potter.” And then he swept out of the room, as billowing and mysterious and intimidating as ever, leaving the four first-years sitting stunned in his wake.

“Now,” Professor Flitwick squeaked at them, “Each of you will write four feet on what you learned last night and why it was or was not worth it to go wandering about in a dangerous corridor after hours. You may begin now. I will expect your essays in my office by dinnertime.” And he followed the other Head of House out the door.

“What…?” Hermione asked blankly.

“What just happened?” Aerin asked the younger Ravenclaw.

“Yeah,” she responded.

“I… have no idea,” Lilian admitted.

Mary stared blankly after the two professors for a long moment before she said, “I told you: Slytherin.” Lilian threw a bit of spare parchment at her head.


	13. Chapter 12: Holidays in Slytherin

###  Monday, 25 November – Friday, 20 December 1991

#### Hogwarts

After their most unusual non-punishment for sneaking into the Forbidden Corridor, the girls decided that there was definitely something fishy going on at Hogwarts, but also that it would probably be a good idea to keep their heads down, at least for a little while. Mary and Lilian had the idea that Professor Snape was watching them more closely than usual, and since Hermione and Aerin had not yet discovered the solution to the Problem of the Black Fire, they were all too happy to spend their time in the library, instead of wandering the halls.

The Winter Holiday was fast approaching. The snow had finally begun to stick on the grounds, and the lake froze over entirely. The Weasley twins bewitched a handful of snowballs to follow Professor Quirrell around, bouncing off the back of his turban. Owl communications became limited as only the hardiest birds would fly through a snowstorm. Most of the school, with the exception of the Great Hall, became very drafty and chilly. The Slytherin dorms stayed the same, cool and slightly humid as always, on the second and third dungeon levels, but the first dungeons, where the potions labs were located, were absolutely frigid.

Late in November, Miss Avery explained to a sniffling Theo Nott that the air-freshening charms in the potions lab pulled air from directly outside, and sent him to Madam Pomfrey over his sniffles. The matron had reportedly been very short with him, and told him off for not taking proper precautions for the weather. After that, all the Slytherins were careful to remember their scarves and knit caps for Potions, though there was nothing to be done about their numb fingers except hold them close to their warm cauldrons.

On Friday of the first week of December, a sign-up sheet was posted in each House’s common room for students who wished to remain at the Castle over the holiday. Mary signed it at once. Lilian and Hermione both invited her to come stay with them over the break, but Mary had not forgotten that Remus Lupin, the Last Marauder, had promised to come visit over the hols. She wrote him a letter to confirm that he was still planning to visit, and told both her friends (and the Drs. Granger) that she would probably stay with McGonagall, anyway, even if he wasn’t coming. She didn’t want to hurt their feelings, but before Hogwarts, she had been accustomed to keeping her own company, and since August she had spent nearly every waking moment with one or another of her friends, or surrounded by a hundred other people. She was actually looking forward to finding some time alone over the break.

The Drs. Granger seemed somewhat disappointed in their return-letter, but they said they understood that she wanted to keep her guardian company, promised to send her a present anyway, and wished her luck in learning more about her parents from Mr. Lupin. Lilian tried to convince Mary to at least come to her parents’ for the Yule celebration on the 22nd, but Mary declined, because she had no idea if she could leave and come back early, and in any case was somewhat uncertain about just dropping in on Mr. and Mrs. Moon out of the blue. Lilian accepted her reasoning after her brother took pity on Mary and told Lilian to just drop it. Hermione, on the other hand, very much wanted a friend to celebrate Christmas with, did not want to take ‘no’ for an answer, and continued bugging her about it until she stopped talking to her for three days.

On the third day of not speaking, Hermione cornered Mary after Charms and told her that she supposed she would just have to owl Mary her present. While this made it clear that Hermione had finally accepted Mary’s decision to stay at the Castle over the break, it also led to an exceedingly awkward conversation about what sort of gift one was expected to give one’s friends over Christmas. Mary was left feeling terribly self-conscious about the fact that she had never actually received a proper gift (last year, Aunt Petunia had given her _one_ of Uncle Vernon’s old socks and a burnt-out lightbulb, with no explanation – why even bother wrapping that sort of thing up? Surely it was better to just… not give her anything at all?) and had never had a friend to give a gift to, anyway. Hermione insisted that it should be something small, only cost one or two galleons at most, and if she could think of nothing else, chocolates were always acceptable.

Mary had summoned Podley that weekend and asked him whether the elves could do holiday shopping, since she could not see when she would have a chance to leave the castle. He had had to say no, with an expression of deepest sorrow that Mary suspected only a kicked puppy could match, but then brightened as he proposed a solution: owl order. He pointed her to the Slytherin Library, where there was a whole stack of the season’s catalogues from different shops in Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. She spent all day Sunday choosing gifts and sending inquiries.

Quite aside from the issues of whether, for whom, and how to obtain Christmas gifts, things were not well in Slytherin House. For no reason Mary and Lilian could determine, the Slytherin upperclassmen became colder and more irritable as the holiday drew nearer. Miles Bletchley, their keeper, hexed a second-year in the common room one evening, and no one would say why. The next day, Tracey Davis said something about visiting her relatives for Christmas, and all of the first-years were gathered up and treated to fourth-year Thane Rowle rant on the meaning of Christmas and the proper celebration of Yule, and how the mudbloods and progressives had simply taken over and were ruining everything for nearly half an hour. Mary was sure it would have gone on longer, but Aradia Carmichael, a sixth-year who was widely regarded as the social leader of the upperclassmen, though she was not a prefect, had finally stunned him, and ordered his girlfriend to take him to the Hospital Wing to cool down. Mary (who had never celebrated either holiday) and Lilian (whose family celebrated both, but not in a traditional way) started avoiding their common room after that, in favor of the library, which if not warm, was at least not as drafty as most of the castle had become.

By the last Friday of term, the upperclassmen’s bad mood had filtered down even to the first-years. In their final Potions class, Draco (whose big mouth was bound to get him in _serious_ trouble one of these days) made an overly-loud comment to Pansy about how he felt _so_ sorry for people who _had_ to stay at Hogwarts for the holiday, because they simply weren’t wanted at home. It was clear from the smirk he directed at the Gryffindors that this was meant to be a dig at the Weasleys, all of whom were staying over the break (to the undisguised dismay of both their own and the Slytherins’ Heads of House, neither of whom wanted to deal with the twins any more than necessary).

Blaise and Theo, however, had both actually been invited by their parents to stay away for the holiday (Blaise’s mum was reeling in Husband Number Seven, and Theo’s father apparently just could not care less about his son or the holiday), while the Weasleys had the excuse that their parents were going to be out of the country (and possibly that not even their mum wanted to deal with the twins for an extended period of time). When the Slytherins got back to their common room after lunch, the two boys picked a fight with Malfoy and his ever-present goons which led to all five (and three ‘innocent’ bystanders who had gotten caught in the crossfire and decided to pay them back in kind) being dragged to the hospital wing by a very un-amused trio of prefects.

The other three prefects busied themselves supervising the packing efforts of students who would be leaving in the morning, and (in the case of the seventh-years) performing “random” contraband inspections of the underclassmen’s rooms. Morgana explained, somewhat bitterly, after several dungbombs and half a dozen unlabeled, unrecognized potions were confiscated from her room, that these “random” inspections only happened when the seventh-years had time, and were in a bad enough mood to ruin someone else’s day. Draco, who apparently had had nothing worth confiscating, returned from the Hospital Wing to find that all of his shirts had been unfolded and re-folded incorrectly, and all the pockets had been turned out in his spare robes. His red-faced shrieking about invasions of privacy and impolite man-handling of his precious clothing could be heard throughout the entire dorm. Miss Rowle, who just so happened to be lounging on a nearby sofa when the boys returned from Madam Pomfrey smirked openly, and remarked to her friend Miss Pierce that she had thought that would “tweak the little ponce’s nose.”

###  Saturday, 21 December – Sunday, 22 December 1991

#### Hogwarts

All in all, when the morning of December 21st arrived, Mary was more than happy to see the carriages rolling away down the main drive. She saw Lilian and Hermione off from the Entry Hall, waving until they were out of sight, and then happily returned to the (much quieter) common room. There were only about a dozen Slytherins staying, and no one above fifth-year. Blaise, Theo and Mary, by mutual consent (and possibly mutual curiosity about what made _that_ spot better than any other), claimed a seating-area in a corner which was generally inhabited by Aradia Carmichael and her clique, and curled up with books and blankets to enjoy the calm after the storm that had been the previous few weeks. None of them spoke to any of the others until the lunch bell rang, startling Mary out of the adventure story she was reading, and Blaise apparently out of a nap.

Theo raised an eyebrow at the other two. “Are you going to lunch?”

“Suppose we should,” Blaise said, uncurling from his crunched-up sleeping position. “I skipped breakfast.”

“Me too,” Mary volunteered. “I just couldn’t wait for everyone to _leave_.”

“You too, eh?” Theo said with a small smile.

She nodded. “I know it’s awful to say, but I couldn’t stand another day of Hermione being all OMG Christmas, or Lilian talking about her mum and dad and grandparents and just _ugh._ ”

The boys snorted. Theo nodded, and Blaise said, “Or Daphne and Pansy and Millie complaining about their hair and the weather and the food and every other little thing, or Malfoy being…”

“Such a bloody _Malfoy_?” Theo finished.

“ _Exactly_. All. The. Time.”

Mary sniggered at the look on Blaise’s face just as a fourth-year none of them knew called from the door, asking if they were coming to lunch or not. They did, and introduced themselves to the older snakes who were hanging around – Kilberthal and Feldsmark from second year; Seran from third; Franks, Tiffald, and Young from fourth; and Bannan, another Young, Madden, and Carpenter from fifth.

They all sat together at the end of the Slytherin table closest to the High Table. None of them seemed to be in an especially talkative mood, but Professor Snape looked pleased enough to see them all sitting together and getting along, rather than isolating themselves like the Ravenclaws who had stayed behind, or being obnoxiously loud like the Weasleys. There were a few other Gryffindors at their table as well, bravely trying to eat despite the dangerous proximity of overly-excited Weasley twins, but no Hufflepuffs. Mary supposed the Hufflepuffs were probably even worse than Hermione about leaving a friend behind over break. She shuddered to think how close she had come to being stuck in that house.

The afternoon passed much like the morning, though instead of reading and napping, Theo and Blaise elected to play chess. When Theo (who had beaten Blaise soundly at least four times) asked if she wanted to have a go and she explained that she’d never played before, they insisted on teaching her. Sabine Kilberthal came over to help once she realized what they were trying to do, and Mary settled into watching Theo and Sabine (who were much more evenly matched than any of the first-years) play a few games. The whole thing was, she found, much simpler to understand after Sabine asked Marcus, the elder Young brother, to freeze the pieces so they couldn’t argue about where they ought to be moved.

After dinner, Aeronwyn Carpenter invited the first-years to join in the Slytherin House Yule Celebration the following evening, and they all accepted as a matter of course. After the older girl left, however, Mary just had to ask if either of the boys knew what they had volunteered themselves for.

They exchanged a look and moved from the chess board back to their couches. Theo sighed, and Blaise ran his hands through his hair. “It’s like this,” Theo started. “Yule is the winter solstice, longest night, midwinter, the point in the year when the dark is strongest.”

Blaise interrupted, seeing the look on Mary’s face. “You know about the dark and the light and the Powers, right?”

“Ummm… not really,” she admitted. “The Moons aren’t really traditionalists, and when we tried to look them up at Samhain, we couldn’t find much.”

“Oh. Right. Um… one second.” Theo disappeared into the Slytherin Library

“You’re in for it now,” Blaise said, retreating to a nearby armchair with Theo’s long-abandoned novel. “Theo’s a huge geek about ritual magic.”

* * *

The quiet boy returned with a few sheets of parchment and a self-inking quill, plopping down on Mary’s couch.

“Here,” he drew a cross and an ‘x’ on the paper, making an eight-pointed star. “Yule or midwinter solstice; Imbolc which is also Maiden’s Day; Ostara, the spring equinox; Beltane or Walpurgis Night; Litha or midsummer solstice; Lammas, which is Tailtiu’s Day; Mabon, the autumn equinox; and Samhain, All Hallows, the night of the dead.” He labeled the eight points with their holidays and the dates. “Solstices and equinoxes move, a bit, but they’re between the 20th and 23rd of the month in March, June, September and December. All their proper rituals happen during the day or at dawn or sunset. The other four are overnight celebrations set between them. Imbolc is the first to the second of February; Beltane is the first to the second of May; Lammas is the last of July to the first of August; and Samhain is the last of October to the first of November.”

“Okay. How do they know what day the solstices are?”

“Check the almanac,” Blaise said with a shrug.

“It’s an astronomy thing,” Theo explained, making two copies of the diagram, without the dates. “If you ask someone from a progressive family, they’ll tell you the year is divided like _this_.” He drew a diagonal line across the first diagram. “Mabon, Samhain, Yule, and Imbolc are the dark half of the year, and Ostara, Beltane, Litha, and Lammas are the light half. Neutral rituals celebrate the continued turning of the circle, the passage of power from one half of the balance of magic to the other, and recognize the ebb and flow of the universe and other such druidic twaddle.”

“Not a fan?” Mary asked, hiding a giggle.

“Oh, Merlin, don’t get him started,” Blaise said.

“You could say that,” Theo smirked, ignoring his friend. “Neutral rituals and celebrations are weak and have no sense of nuance. If you wanted to be _really_ neutral, you would celebrate the proper dark _and_ light rituals, giving honor to both. The so-called neutral rituals are neither light nor dark, and less than either. They really shouldn’t be considered rituals at all. Proper light wizards celebrate these holidays,” he added, circling them on the second diagram as he explained. “Midwinter, because the light begins to gain power again over the dark; Imbolc for youth and potential; Ostara for life and fertility and also the point at which light becomes dominant over the dark; Beltane for choice; Midsummer as the height of the light’s power; and Lammas as kind of a day of commitment. They honor the dead on Samhain, but it’s not a day of power for them, by which I mean there are light rituals that are meant to take place on Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, and Lammas, but _not_ on Mabon or Samhain. Do you follow?”

“I think so. Is the dark the opposite?”

Blaise sighed, clearly only pretending to ignore them, but Theo grinned, “Not quite, but kind of. The dark celebrates on Mabon, when dark takes precedence over light; Samhain for death and destruction; Yule, when the dark is at its peak; Walpurgis, which is also Beltane, for wildness and freedom; midsummer, when the light begins to wane, and Lammas for binding and compulsion.” He circled these on the last copy of the diagram. “Just like the light, we have rituals that are meant to happen on each of these six days, and none for Imbolc or Ostara. So the dark of the year, properly speaking, is from Beltane to Yule, and the light of the year is from Yule to Lammas. Four of the eight major holidays have both light and dark powers active: Yule, Beltane, Litha, and Lammas, where the light and dark overlap. Mabon and Samhain are only dark, and Imbolc and Ostara are only light, for ritual purposes”

It made sense on the diagram, but Theo had just mentioned something she had been wondering about since Halloween. “Powers? Are they like gods?”

Blaise looked up from his book to see Theo’s response to that question, and stifled a laugh at the face he made.

“No. Not gods. They’re _Powers_. My father says they ‘affect attributes of the natural world and human existence’. The gods, all the different pantheons, they’re _aspects_ or faces of one or more powers. There are eight major Dark Powers, and eight major Light Powers. The dark ones are Binding; Chaotic; Deathly; Deceptive; Destructive; Infernal; Solitary; and Tangible. The light ones are Deliberative; Orderly; Lively; Naïve; Constructive; Mundane; Cooperative; and Intangible.” He rattled these off with the ease of long practice, and then wrote them down, pairing them in order. “Most of them aren’t really what we normally think of as light and dark in terms of magic. Order and Binding are really similar, for example, and both are celebrated on Lammas. Same for Chaotic and Deliberative on Walpurgis, which is what makes those holidays good for both light and dark rituals, and not just light or just dark.”

Mary nodded. She wasn’t going to ask about ritual magic. Holidays were enough for now.

“So the differences between a lot of the different powers are really their associations and focus, even though they are celebrated at the same time. So on Walpurgis, which is all about freedom of choice, you have chaos or wildness and doing what you _want_ to do, but you also have deliberation and well-reasoned responsible adult kind of choices – duty and responsibility and that sort of thing.

“Ummm… okay?” Mary wasn’t sure she was following anymore.

“The philosophy with the powers isn’t really that important unless you’re making a dedication or doing ritual magic, and let’s face it, you probably won’t,” Theo informed her. “And it gets really weird with Infernal and Mundane and Tangible and Intangible. Mostly people stick to the major dark/light magical definitions: compulsion versus choice; wildness versus domestication; deception versus honesty; and independence versus cooperation.”

“Could you write those down too?” He did, scribbling on the back of one of the diagrams.

“They fall out like this,” he added, scrawling powers or attributes next to each holiday. “Yule is for independence or isolation or solitude. Imbolc is for honesty, youth, potential and naïveté. Ostara is for life. Beltane is for freedom and choice, both chaotic and deliberative. Litha is for interdependence, cooperation. Lammas is for binding – order, compulsion, domestication, duty, and commitment. A lot of marriages happen on Lammas. Mabon is for deception, wisdom, experience, and age. And then Samhain is for death and the dead. If you want to add in the other Powers, the destructive power goes with death; constructive with life. Infernal and intangible go for Yule with solitary, and mundane and tangible go for Litha with cooperative.”

“What are those ones?” Mary squinted at Theo’s upside-down handwriting, “Infernal and intangible and mundane?”

Now it was Theo’s turn to sigh. “Weird. They’re weird. Infernal is technically dark and has something to do with other dimensions or something, and also magic. Intangible is technically light: spirit and ideas and past and present and things like that, but of this world. They go at Yule with the solitary power because they’re hard to explain and kind of similar, but actually entirely different. They’re both outside of you and the world in completely different ways, if that makes sense. I… really try not to think about them too hard to be honest. Mundane is this world, the opposite of infernal – everything we can sense in this plane of existence. Tangible is everything physical and kind of gets a bad reputation as being about worldly pleasures, but it’s not just that. They go with the cooperative power because you experience them as part of the world around you. There’s a lot of overlap, and infernal is different from everything else. Like you can have tangible and intangible and all the others, really, within the mundane world, but infernal as a concept exists completely outside and away from all that. I don’t really think I can explain it any better than that…”

Mary gave the boy a reassuring grin as he trailed off. “You’ve definitely explained a lot more than I could find in the library.”

“That,” Blaise said, finally choosing to re-enter the conversation, “is because Dumbledore’s a progressive, which means Hogwarts officially wants nothing to do with dark or light rituals, and the library has been censored. Theo’s father is a bit of a nut when it comes to traditional culture, so he got the full Old Family pre-Hogwarts education.”

Theo snorted. “Yeah, that’s a bit of an understatement. Could have been worse, though. I hear the Blacks used to make their kids learn Welsh. I’ll ask him to send you a book. He’ll be thrilled I’m spreading traditional values.”

“Thanks!” Mary wasn’t really one for reading non-fiction for fun, and she was fairly sure Theo’s diagrams would be more than good enough for her, but she was sure Hermione would be interested in taking notes on it and learning all the philosophy and associations and whatnot. “But do you know what we’ll actually be expected to do tomorrow?”

“Oh, right! So I was saying, Yule is the winter solstice, longest night, midwinter, the point in the year when the dark is strongest. It’s also the point where the light begins to regain its strength, so it’s a turning point, like the midsummer and the equinoxes. For rituals, it’s most strongly associated with the solitary, intangible, and infernal powers. There are both light and dark rituals, but they all take place at sunset. The Carpenter family is Old Balanced, so if she’s in charge, we’ll probably be invoking both sides. You should avoid other people as much as possible from sunrise to sunset. Spend the day thinking about what you want out of life and what gives your life meaning, enjoying your own company and finding strength in yourself. Just show up at the Inner Courtyard at sunset and you should be fine.”

Blaise must have read Mary’s hesitance in her face, because he added, “It will be like Halloween. You’ll know what to do when you need to do it. Anything else is just… extra. Not important. Or, not essential, I guess, would be better.” He corrected himself at Theo’s glare.

Mary gave a sigh of relief. “Okay. Thanks guys. I think I can do that. So I’ll see you tomorrow at sunset, then?”

“Well,” Theo said with a small smile, “You’ll probably see us at lunch, first, but don’t be surprised if we’re not all that talkative.”

“Okay. I think I’m going to call this a night, then.” The boys offered their farewells, and she headed toward her room. She somehow thought she would have more than enough to think about over the next day.

* * *

Mary woke early on the morning of Yule, and so actually attended breakfast, though hardly anyone else did. She decided to take food with her and avoid the hall at lunch, as well. As she left, an older Ravenclaw who was on his way in nodded to her and said, “Well met and glad tidings,” which she assumed was a traditional greeting like “Happy Christmas.”

She dressed as warmly as possible, and decided to go find an abandoned tower to sit in and watch the snow fall on the grounds. After nearly an hour of wandering the deserted corridors – the school was a strange and wondrous place when it was empty for the holidays – she reached a small, round room at the top of a tower overlooking the lake and the forest. She could just make out Hagrid’s cabin in the weak, early-morning light, windows glowing golden and smoke curling from the chimney. It was a very pretty sight.

She sat in the window, staring absently at the snow, no longer seeing it as she thought about everything that had happened to her since she got her letter. She had friends, and was no longer kept in a cupboard like an animal. She had money – a surprising amount of it, and she now knew that her parents, though still dead, were not the worthless layabouts Aunt Petunia had always claimed. She would never have to see any of the Dursleys again, which was… mind boggling, really. She was learning magic, which was amazing, and felt incredibly _right_ , in a way nothing else about her life ever really had. Of course, to balance all that out, someone, possibly one of her professors, was possibly trying to kill her. She had had more close calls in her first four months at Hogwarts than she had ever had at Privet Drive. But she thought on the whole that her life was good. Better.

What had Theo said to think about? What you want out of life and inner strength? Well, she wasn’t sure what all there was to think about, so far as inner strength went. She had always had to rely on herself, so she thought she had that one fairly well covered. She had enjoyed talking to the boys the night before, even Theo’s really long lecture on all the holidays that she didn’t really understand. It was nice to be around Lilian and Hermione, who knew her so very well by this point, better than anyone else ever had, to be sure, but it was also nice and relaxing in a way to get away from them and their constant observation. She thought she might be more comfortable, here and now, than ever before in her life, safe at Hogwarts, with the promise of magic humming in the air around her, and no one watching her warily or fascinated or just concerned with her opinions; no one wanting her to be anything in particular.

She smiled to herself, and then startled, head whipping around instinctively, as a dry voice behind her said, “Well met and glad tidings, Miss Potter.”

“Well met and glad tidings, Professor Snape,” Mary parroted, trying to keep her surprise from her face. Professor Snape moved like a bloody ninja.

The man nodded gravely, and then proceeded to ignore her, folding himself into another window seat and pulling a leather-bound book from his pocket. He flipped through it for a while, and then stared absently over the grounds before reading a few more pages. She watched him anxiously for a few minutes, then decided that it was probably safe to ignore him just as he was ignoring her. She pressed her forehead to the glass of the window, enjoying the coolness on her skin, watching the wind dance through the still-falling snow, though it was trailing off.

What do you want out of life? That was like asking who you wanted to be, wasn’t it? The girl thought about this for some indeterminate amount of time, until the only snow falling was that blown off the Castle roof. She decided she didn’t know. She did not want to be thought of as the savior of the wizarding world, or some sort of champion of the light. She wasn’t sure she really cared about politics at all, and she had the impression that her fame made her a powerful political symbol. But she wasn’t sure anyone really cared about what she thought. Just as the sun finally broke through the clouds, she decided that was what she wanted out of life – for people to care what she thought, enough so that she could be her own person, and not their symbol or their savior or whatever.

Mary smiled and wrote her initials in the condensation her breath had left on the window before uncurling her cold-stiffened limbs. She was hungry, but thought it would be rude to eat without offering Professor Snape anything, but then again, equally rude to interrupt his contemplation. She slipped quietly out of the room instead, and snacked on her pilfered bread, cheese, and fruit as she wandered the halls, nodding politely to any portraits that hailed her. She finished as the carillon bells, which hadn’t been audible in the little round room, struck two. She was rather at a loss for what to do next, but decided that she was tired of portraits trying to get her attention, and it was too cold to really go outside, she would go to the Great Hall instead.

The Hall was decorated for the holidays – it had been since the last day of term, so that everyone who went home could see it in all its glory, or so Mary supposed. There were a dozen enormous pine trees equally spaced around the walls, decorated with ribbons and baubles and fairy lights. Professor Flitwick, she thought, had done most of the decorating. Between the trees and the sky-ceiling overhead, it was almost like being in the middle of a forest. She closed her eyes, enjoying the smell of pine and the fires which were kept lit all the time now. She wasn’t sure, but she thought this might be the warmest room in the castle at the moment. She liked to think that this might be like tenting – surrounded by trees and the smell of a campfire, warm with clear skies overhead. She fell asleep despite herself, lying on one of the Slytherin benches.

* * *

Mary’s eyes snapped open. She didn’t know what had woken her up, but the enchanted ceiling above her was going orange with the sunset. She hurried to the Inner Courtyard, hoping she wasn’t too late for the ceremony.

Blaise checked the time as she pushed the door open. She was sure she looked frantic, just woken up with her hair half-out of its pony-tail. “Well met and glad tidings,” he said with a smirk. “You’re not late. Sundown’s still twenty minutes out.”

“Oh, good.” She started fixing her hair and then remembered the proper greeting. “Well met and glad tidings.” The boy suppressed a snigger, but didn’t say anything else, so after she fixed her hair (and cloak, and the one sock that had managed to come half off inside her boot), she watched the other people instead as the last arrivals filtered in.

There were nearly two dozen of them, all told. All of the Slytherin students who were still in the castle had turned out, and were standing around the courtyard quietly in ones and twos; four older Ravenclaws huddled in a knot around the same blue fire that Aerin had conjured in the Forbidden Corridor; the Weasley twins were present, looking surprisingly serious, but no other Gryffindors; Professor Snape and Professor Sinistra looked like they were pretending very hard not to know each other, while Professor Vector sat on a bench watching them and smirking openly. None of those were a particular surprise – even the Twins had attended the Revel – but the presence of Professors McGonagall and Flitwick certainly was.

The Gryffindor and Ravenclaw heads of house looked somehow out of place, though Mary couldn’t have said why. Perhaps it was the way the Professor was so stern, and Professor Flitwick looked so excited, while everyone else was more serene and relaxed than usual.

Several minutes into her speculation on why, exactly, Professors McGonagall and Flitwick were unlike the others, Miss Carpenter stepped forward and declared herself the Mistress of Ceremonies, calling for everyone to form a circle in the center of the space. Mary ended up between Blaise and Theo, across from one of the Weasleys. She wondered if that was intentional.

“Today, on the eve of this, the midwinter solstice,” Aeronwyn said, pitching her voice low to be heard around the circle, “we gather here beneath the open sky to give honor to the dark, in its moment of greatest strength, and to the light, ever present, even in this, its moment of greatest weakness.”

A breeze stirred the fresh snow in the courtyard. There was a sense, as at the Revel, of magic gathering in the air around them.

“We witness the majesty of the Powers Independent, Transient, and Mysterious, for they are great and terrible, and far beyond our understanding. We offer up our most essential selves to the Powers and the Elements in this moment of transition, sacrificing the people we are for the people we could be – the people we want to be.”

The light was fading fast now, as the magic began to, for lack of a better description, circle. It could not be seen, only felt, but Mary thought that if it were visible, it would look like a swirling tornado-cloud, centered over their circle.

“We take the dark into ourselves, as it recognizes the darkness within us.”

For the first time since the ritual began, Mary felt the urge to speak. Her voice murmured along with most of the circle: “I take the darkness into myself,” and part of the gathering storm of magic broke off from the circling cloud and engulfed her, filling her with a sense of self-assurance and _possibility_ , as though she were standing right at the edge of unknowable things.

“We take the light into ourselves, as it recognizes the light within us.”

Again, Mary found herself murmuring (albeit with many fewer other voices): “I take the light into myself.” The new magic swirling around her and through her brought with it a tangle of emotions: excitement and anticipation for the future, sadness that she had not gotten to see the past, the happiness and relief she felt being here, today.

The sensations of magic racing through her were almost overwhelming. Her blood was fizzing in her veins as the power coursed through it, encircling her heart, pulsing in her head. It was far, far more directly a rush than what she had felt at the Revel, increasing in, again, for lack of a better word, _pressure_ until when she thought she could not possibly bear it any longer, a balance was reached, and the pressure of magic and the warring of light and dark within her faded away, and she was able to look outside herself again.

Aeronwyn had left her place in the circle and was moving from person to person in no particular order, as though in a trance. Her eyes were blank, misty-white. She spoke quietly to each person before kissing them and moving on to the next.

She came to Blaise, laying a hand on either side of his face, close enough for Mary to hear her ask, “Who are you?”

“Blaise,” he said quietly.

“Who do you want to be?”

“Anyone.”

“Know and become,” the older girl said, tilting Blaise’s face upward. “Blessings of the dark.”

And she touched her lips gently to his.

“My thanks to the dark on this the day of longest night,” the boy whispered as the Mistress of Ceremonies wandered away.

She found one of the other Slytherin girls, and then a Ravenclaw boy before she approached the twins together. They were too far away for Mary to make out what was said, but the girl kissed each of them, and moved on to Professor McGonagall, and then Professor Snape.

Then it was Theo’s turn.

“Who are you?”

“No one.”

“Who do you want to be?”

“One who lives outside what is.”

“Know and become, little brother. Blessings of the dark.”

“Returned threefold, darkness graced.”

The girl turned and stopped with two more Ravenclaws and Professor Vector before she returned to Mary.

“Who are you?”

Mary looked deep into the older girl’s mist-filled eyes, black and white swirling grey. She had been thinking about what she would say since she heard the questions given to Blaise, but now that the moment was upon her, she found her planning meant nothing: the words were drawn out by the magic. “Mary Elizabeth”

“Who do you want to be?”

“Myself.” Like her name, the word fell from her lips with no conscious effort on Mary’s part. She wondered what it meant.

“Know and become,” Aeronwyn said, turning Mary’s face upward with a finger beneath her chin. “Blessings of the dark,” she murmured, brushing her lips over Mary’s. As soon as they made contact, the dark power that had been coursing through Mary rushed out of her, finding a place within the Mistress of Ceremonies instead. Unlike the boys, however, Mary had taken to the light, too, so the older girl added, “Light of the light,” and brushed her lips over Mary’s forehead. The light power followed the dark, leaving Mary with only a trace, an echo of the magic which had so briefly been hers.

There were tears in her eyes as she whispered, “My thanks to the dark, and to the light.”

Neither Blaise nor Theo said anything, but Blaise reached over and squeezed her hand as they watched the rest of the ritual. Sabine Kilberthal was the last person to be visited. After she surrendered her part of the power they shared, the Mistress of Ceremonies moved to the center of the circle.

“We stand before the dark and the light, before the Powers and each other, bearing witness to the turning of the cycle, each of our own will and mind. We know ourselves, in the world and of it, and we know our hearts. Let us honor the darkness, which lends its strength to our endeavors. Let us honor the light, which guides us in our choices. Let us honor the Solitary Power, for each of us must walk our own path. Let us honor the Immaterial Power, as all things live to change. Let us honor the Unimaginable Power, as we walk with magic, with what may be and might have been. Let us lose ourselves and in the way, find the people we wish to be!”

With this final declaration, the magic, bound up so tightly within the girl at the center of the circle, broke free and raced three times around the circle, jumping from person to person. The full weight of it bearing down all at once was like being doused in cold water, or buried under a ton of bricks, being burnt alive, or suffocated by the overwhelming _presence_ of something so much greater than oneself. After the third time, it moved back to the whirling cloud in the center of the circle before slowly dissipating. When it was finally gone, Miss Carpenter collapsed to her knees, and the people in the circle found themselves able to move. Professor Snape helped the girl to her feet, and the celebrants made their way to the Great Hall, all, so far as Mary could tell, a bit unnerved by the magic and whatever revelations the ritual held for them.

###  Wednesday, 25 December 1991

#### Hogwarts

The two days between Yule and Christmas passed in a comfortable blur of reading bits of trashy fiction that had accumulated in Slytherin over the course of the term and lounging around the common room (either talking or enjoying comfortable silence) with whoever happened to be about, with the occasional snowball fight led by the Weasley twins. These seemed to happen after every meal, but Mary did not attend them all.

On Christmas morning, Mary woke to find a small pile of gifts stacked on top of her trunk. She had expected Hermione and Lilian’s presents, of course, since the three of them had discussed what they should get (Hermione had been sent a book of magical fairy tales, and Lilian had been sent a box of Honeyduke’s chocolates. She had left hand-made thank-you cards for Cammy and Podley, and one for all the elves in the common room, where the elves were bound to find them, and after some consideration, had sent a box of chocolates to the Professor as well, on the principle that it was better to be safe than sorry). She had not expected the three other rather squashy parcels that had also been delivered to her room.

The first present on the stack was small and rectangular, from Hermione. Mary knew even before she opened it that it would be a book. She unwrapped it carefully to find a copy of _Ender’s Game_ , which Hermione had mentioned before, along with a note explaining that she would have sent chocolates, but her parents would have insisted on sugar-free, and what was the point of that?

Lilian’s gift was a mixed box of wizarding sweets, because, she said in her note, Mary hadn’t had enough variety to know what her favorite was yet. Mary grinned at this, grabbing a Pumpkin Pasty for breakfast.

The first large, squashy present was from the Drs. Granger. Mary had forgotten that they had threatened to send something, and worried briefly over the fact that she hadn’t gotten anything for them, but quickly decided that it was too late now, and they would have to make due with a very nice thank-you note. She was a bit reassured when she opened it to find three jumpers and two pairs of jeans, which was more clothing than anyone else had ever bought her, but at least useful and not something terribly personalized. Their note said, “Merry Christmas, Miss Elizabeth. We hope you’re having a good time, and having fun with whoever else has stayed behind. You told us at least twice that you didn’t want us to send anything, but we couldn’t stand the thought of ignoring you over the holiday, so we’ve compromised with a practical gift. Do enjoy the rest of your break, and we hope to hear from you soon, Dan and Emma.”

She tried on the clothes and found them slightly too large, but generally a good fit. She wondered idly how they had managed that, as she didn’t even have anything else in muggle sizes for Hermione to spy out for them. Now dressed in new jeans and a Slytherin-green jumper, Mary turned to the two remaining gifts.

The one on top was from Professor McGonagall, and was, like the Grangers’ gift, very practical: a black winter-weight cloak with permanent heating charms, and a knitted hat, scarf, and mittens, all a deep maroon-ish red. The accompanying note simply said “Happy Holidays,” probably because they had plans to meet for Christmas Tea later in the afternoon.

Mary recognized the now-familiar feel of clothing as she picked up the final parcel, light and flexible. It was rather smaller than the others, and she wondered who could possibly have sent it. She unwrapped it, saving the paper as she had with the others, to find another cloak, this one made of a strange, fluid, silvery-grey material. It was very thin, and folded up much smaller than she expected. It would fit easily into the pocket of her regular robes. It draped when she picked it up like water woven into cloth, and was strangely cool to the touch, like the bottom-side of a pillow that never got warm. Probably the most important thing about it, though, was that when she put it on to see what it looked like, her body disappeared.

It had a hood, and when she felt around and pulled it over her head, she disappeared entirely.

A Cloak of Invisibility. An invisibility cloak? Whatever it was called, it seemed to be the perfect length for her, just sweeping the ground.

_Fascinating_. She supposed she ought not be surprised by anything in the magical world anymore, but this was just… amazing. Where did one _get_ such a thing? Surely not Madam Malkin’s…

She shook it out, and then looked around, hoping that there was a note along with it. She didn’t think it had come to her accidentally (her name was on the tag, at least), but she did want to know where it had come from, and _why_ someone had sent it to her.

A scrap of parchment had fallen halfway under the bed, presumably when she went to try it on. The writing was narrow and loopy, and she didn’t recognize it.

_Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well. A Very Merry Christmas to you._

That was just _entirely_ unhelpful.

Maybe it was from Remus Lupin? But no, his handwriting was different. She couldn’t think of any of his other friends who had survived the war. She supposed she would have to ask the Last Marauder if he had any ideas when he came to visit.

* * *

Christmas Dinner was held at half-past one, and there was  _far_ more food than the current residents of the Castle could possibly eat, and stacks of wizard crackers between the serving dishes. These provided the major entertainment for the meal, as they provided silly hats (which about half the professors indulged in) and live mice and the sort of things that Mary imagined wizarding children might get in their stockings, if they had them – glowing, pop-proof balloons, Exploding Snap cards, and from the one she split with Blaise, something he identified as a Fanged Frisbee. Theo got an actual  _firework_ in one of his, and the boys split one that just turned into a rain of glitter and confetti.

The mood had been set when the Weasley twins frog-marched their older brother in, his arms pinned to his sides by a jumper with a ‘P’ on it. They’d kept up a running string of antics since, and for once everyone (except Percy) seemed to find them amusing rather than irritating. After the turkey and potatoes (and chipolatas, but Mary didn’t care for those), there were flaming Christmas puddings (Theo got a sickle in his), and even more crackers. There was wine at the High Table, and a jolly atmosphere all around. Quirrell was nowhere to be seen, which Mary always found to be an improvement. Hagrid got drunk and kissed Professor McGonagall on the cheek, and instead of hexing him halfway to his cabin, she giggled, top hat askew. Professor Flitwick was telling jokes rather loudly, and Professor Snape and Professor Sinistra were shooting speculative looks at each other when they thought the other wasn’t looking.

After dinner, the Weasleys led the way out into the grounds for yet another snowball fight, even managing to get some of the Ravenclaws and older Slytherins to participate. Mary dragged Blaise and Theo out with the threat that if they didn’t come, she would bring snowballs into the common room after them. Playing in the snow was, she found, much more fun with her new cloak and mittens.

Much later, flushed with cold and exertion, the young Slytherins made their way back to their Common Room, grinning openly and dripping all over the floors. Even Theo seemed to have gotten past his dislike of the muggle holiday, at least enough to enjoy the festive mood. Mary changed quickly before going to find Professor McGonagall for her promised tea.

* * *

Mary arrived outside Professor McGonagall’s door promptly at five and when she knocked, the older witch opened the door herself, ushering her young charge into her small sitting room, where she had already laid out the tea service and cakes.

The room itself was decorated in what Mary thought were probably the House McGonagall colors – emerald green, a deep blue (much darker than Ravenclaw blue), and Gryffindor red. The woman herself was wearing a shawl with a tartan pattern in the same colors. Mary had not really had many expectations for the Professor’s living space, but she supposed if she had thought about it, she would have expected it to look more like her office, which was full of practical things – books and papers, mostly – and little knickknacks her graduating students had given her over the years. Instead, she found that the décor reminded her a bit of Mrs. Figg’s house, without the cats and the smell of cabbage. It was cozy, with squashy, mis-matched furniture and the tea set was very old-fashioned. There were pictures on the bookcases, and a two portraits had been hung where they had a good view of the entire room. The woman in one of them looked so much like a red-haired Professor McGonagall that Mary thought they must be her parents, but she had no idea who the reedy-looking man with the enormous moustache might be.

“Oh, do sit down, Mary,” the Professor said lightly. “I’ve had the elves send up some sandwiches as well as the usual cakes, as I, for one, do not plan on returning to the Great Hall again this evening.”

Mary giggled, thinking of Hagrid kissing her slightly tipsy professor. “You’re not avoiding Hagrid, are you?”

“No, I’m avoiding the Headmaster, who will doubtless never let me live down the absurdity of that hat,” the Professor explained, pouring the tea. Mary, who wasn’t terribly fond of tea, added a lot of milk and sugar to hers. Professor McGonagall half-managed to hide her amusement as she added, “If you preferred warm milk, you could have just said.”

The girl flushed slightly. “I’m trying to come to like it,” she explained. “Every true Briton likes tea, after all.”

“Well, and so. God save the queen and all that,” the Professor said drily. Mary giggled. “So, Mary, how have your holidays been?”

“Good!” the girl said enthusiastically. “This is the best Christmas I’ve ever had, and Yule was, well, amazing – magic is just so cool sometimes – and it’s been nice having the Castle so quiet. I’ve kind of missed it, you know? And I’ve spent some time with Theo and Blaise, which is different, but nice, and I actually got _presents_ , which is just _weird_. Thank you for the cloak and the hat and mittens and scarf, by the way!”

“You’re very welcome,” the Professor murmured.

“I love them. I would have worn the scarf, but I had it on during the snowball fight, and now it’s all wet.”

The Professor smiled fondly. “Thank you for the chocolates as well. One can never have too many chocolates, I find.”

“Oh, good! I’m glad you like them. I wasn’t sure what to get, or if I even should, but then Hermione said that when in doubt, chocolates were always a good choice, so I figured I might as well.” She paused for a moment before asking, “And your holidays? Have they been going well?”

“Yes, child, thank you for asking. It is lovely to have a break from the responsibilities of classes, and Miss Carpenter did do an _excellent_ job with the Yule ritual. Very well-balanced, and she carried it off gracefully. I must say, I was rather surprised to see you there. Almost as much as I was to see the Weasley boys.”

“Oh! Why wouldn’t I go? I mean, I’d never turn down an invitation to go to a house event. And the twins came to the Halloween Revel, too. Erm, you know about that, right?”

“Miss Potter, I _did_ attend this school once upon a time,” the Professor reminded her charge.

“Right, well, they said they wanted to honor the Dead and love a good party.”

“I think you misunderstand,” the Professor explained with a smile. “I was not surprised they attended, but that they were invited in the first place. I understood most of Slytherin House considers them to be a menace.”

Mary laughed at this, because it was true. The twins _were_ a menace. Just last week, they had somehow charmed the scarves of every Slytherin who was going home to be red and gold instead of their usual greens, blacks, and silvers. “Morgana Yaxley and her friends invited them to the Revel. Something about the Chaotic Power? I don’t know how they found out about the Yule ritual.”

“Ah, yes, I can see that…”

“I was surprised to see you and Professor Flitwick,” Mary offered.

The Professor smiled. “Yes, Professor Flitwick and myself are the only light folks left in the castle who celebrate the Old Ways.”

“Oh.” Mary hadn’t expected that, for some reason. Could their out-of-place-ness simply be the fact that they were the lightest people in the gathering? “Not even Professor Dumbledore?” He _was_ old, after all, and the leader of the Light.

“No, Albus is a progressive. He believes that it is time we moved on from the Old Ways and embrace the future, including more modern holidays, like Christmas.”

“That’s stupid!” Mary said without thinking. “I mean, today has been _fun_ , but Yule was…”

“Magic,” the Professor said quietly, after Mary trailed off, “and power. And there are many who have come to believe since Grindelwald’s War and then the last War that it is dangerous for wizards to court power too closely.”

“But… That’s just…” Mary was at a loss. She could see why people were scared after spending the ‘40s and the ‘70s at war, but turning away from their traditions just because it gave them a peek at stronger magic than they ever practiced in daily life? Because two wizards in however many thousands had lived over the course of the century had gone power-mad? “It’s wrong,” she declared, finally. “That’s a stupid reason.”

“Well, I won’t say I disagree with you, lass, but things are the way they are.” The Professor finished her sandwich and passed a wrapped gift to the now-pouting girl. “Let’s not ruin a good day with talk of scared old men,” she suggested.

“What’s this? You already got me a present,” Mary reminded the older woman.

“As your guardian,” the older woman replied, “it _is_ my responsibility to make sure you have proper clothing and other such basic essentials. This is something more personal. Go on and open it,” she encouraged the girl.

Mary was somewhat anxious about receiving even _more_ presents, especially if it was going to be something frivolous. It seemed like a book, though, so perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad. She unwrapped it to find that it was, indeed, a book: a well-worn copy of _The_ _Collected Poems of Aradia Montreve_. Mary brushed her fingers over the faded title and cracked spine. The blank page at the front of the book held two notes. The first was written in careless ballpoint pen:

_Dear Minnie (and yes, I think I will feel free to call you that, now that I’m no longer your student – you thought it was just Black, but he’s just the only one stupid enough to say it aloud – secretly, we all think of you as Minnie), _

_Now that I’ve actually sat down and started writing, everything that comes to mind is insufficient. Thank you. Thank you for everything. I could never have done this whole magic thing without you. I would have left in second year, or after fifth, or quite possibly have been taken to Azkaban in third for murdering Jamie Potter. Thank you more than I can ever say, for your kind words and sage advice, for always being there when I needed you the most, and of course for NOT telling Professor Slughorn it was I who stole the Boomslang skin last year, even though I know you knew all along. I hope this collection will remind you of me as much as Montreve reminds me of you._

_Lily Marie Evans_

The second note was shorter, and written in the same copperplate hand that graced every returned Transfiguration assignment.

_Dear Mary,_

_Once upon a time, despite the differences in our ages, I considered your mother to be a very dear friend. She gave me this book in the hopes that it would remind me of her, and I give it to you in the hopes that you might find the shadow of the woman she was in the words of a poet she loved. For all that she said Montreve reminds her of me, I always thought her speakers were more like Lily._

_Merry Christmas and Blessed Be,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

“I wasn’t really sure what to get you,” Professor McGonagall said. She sounded… uncertain, for the first time Mary had ever heard. “But this is the book your mother gave me when she graduated. Montreve was one of her favorites, and I thought perhaps you might grow to like her as well.”

Mary wasn’t really listening, still staring at her mother’s words, inscribed on the page, but when the Professor stopped speaking, she set the book aside.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, standing and moving somewhat awkwardly to the older woman’s side. “It’s very thoughtful,” she added, and then gave the astonished professor a quick hug.

The professor didn’t quite manage to hide her expression before the girl looked at her again. Mary flushed and bit her lip as she returned to her own chair. Was that not right? Dudley always hugged Aunt Marge when she gave him presents, even though she knew he didn’t like her a bit. Maybe wizards were different.

###  Friday, 27 December 1991

#### The Room with the Mirror

Mary was sitting in an abandoned fourth-floor classroom, wrapped in the Invisibility Cloak. It was late, far past curfew, and the only light in the room came from the waning moon shining through the large windows. She was examining the mirror standing before her, for the third night in a row.

Well, perhaps ‘examining’ was too strong a word.

She had come across it quite by accident on Christmas night. She had stayed up late reading bits of the book Professor McGonagall had given her, but she thought she might be too young to really understand the obscure, metaphor-laden verses. They seemed to be sad, and sometimes angry at the world, and a few were sad and brave, as though the speaker was trying desperately to save something, against all the odds, and refused to give up, but that was really all she got out of it.

By the time she was ready to admit that she was not going to understand the poems that night, she was too frustrated and antsy to go to sleep, so she decided to wander the halls for a while instead. She had donned the invisibility cloak so that she wouldn’t have to try quite so hard to be sneaky, and had taken a new exit from the dorm. It had appeared over Yule, and she hadn’t had a chance to explore it yet.

It turned out the new exit led to the second floor, and came out behind a tapestry covered with little geometric snakes. It wasn’t near any of the classrooms she ever needed to go to, but it was fairly close to the library. She wandered the halls for a while, enjoying the strange sensation of looking down and seeing nothing by dappled shadows and moonlight where her legs should be. She considered trying to find the little round room at the top of that tower, where she had sat thinking on Yule, but decided she was not dressed warmly enough for that.

Instead, she started methodically poking her head into every unlocked room that she had never been in before. There were only three on the third floor, and they held nothing interesting, just old desks and chairs stacked along the walls. She found a pair of ghosts she had never met arguing about something called a Death Day party in one of the rooms on the fourth floor. Fortunately, they were paying more attention to each other than to the door (which opened apparently of its own accord), and Mary was able to sneak back out without being seen or otherwise sensed.

After two more boring, empty rooms, she was about ready to go back to bed, and was heading to the nearest shortcut to the dungeons when she saw another door she had never noticed before. She decided to pop her head in, since it was on the way. She was glad she did. Apparently the seventh time was the charm, because this room, while still clearly a disused classroom, with desks and chairs pushed aside, and even an empty, overturned wastepaper bin in the corner, also held The Mirror.

The Mirror was large, as tall, nearly as high as the ceiling, with an ornate golden frame and an inscription at the top: Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. The back was plain and unornamented, and when she screwed up her courage and touched the glass, it was solid, not any kind of portal to another dimension or something like that.

It was not, however, a normal mirror. It couldn’t be, for it stood, completely out of place on its clawed feet, and reflected not only the room itself and the invisible girl before it, but a number of other places and times. These played out across its surface like a silent television, her own reflection ghostly and unreal in comparison. The only common part of them was the woman who always seemed to play a starring role. She was maybe twenty or thirty – older than any of the students, but younger than Professor Snape. She had Mary’s eyes and curly black hair, and Mary thought maybe she was supposed to be Future Mary.

The first night, she had seen Future Mary acting out what might have been scenes from the poetry had been reading earlier, lost in the woods with her wand in one hand and a vicious looking knife in the other, a feral grin on her face; standing on the edge of one of the white cliffs in Dover, outside a lonely, windswept cottage; facing down a man in black with a silver mask, as he tried to cow her in a dark alley; in the thick of a fight, spells flying in every direction, back to back with two other women who might have been an older Hermione and Lilian; standing in a cemetery she had never seen before, crying over a grave, its headstone just too far away to see.

It was very strange, but fascinating. She had returned the next night, and tonight as well, simply to watch and try to figure out what the mirror was meant to show her.

She was watching Future Mary laugh with a man who was probably her husband (his features were indistinct, and his hair nondescript, so she didn’t know who he was meant to be, but they acted like the Drs. Granger together, holding hands and sharing smiles and quick kisses), a baby on her hip and a little boy with her messy black hair playing with a toy broom at their feet, when a voice spoke from behind her, startling her badly.

“So, back again, Mary Potter?”

Mary twisted around so quickly that she nearly lost her balance – an impressive feat, as she was already sitting on the floor. She snatched the hood of the cloak from her head and asked the first thing that came to mind: “How did you know I was there, sir?”

The Headmaster smiled. He was sitting on a desk by the wall. She thought he was probably _disillusioned_ (which was the spell the older Slytherins had put on everyone to hide them from the troll) when she came in, since she _had_ looked around the room when she entered, and there was no way she could have missed his lurid violet and gold robes if he had been visible. He moved to sit on the floor with Mary before he answered.

“A little birdie told me you’d been by. The Headmaster does have certain privileges in the school, you know, and it is a simple matter to ask the wards who has been sneaking out to see the Mirror of a night.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I apologize for being out of bounds, and I promise I’ll go straight back to Slytherin,” she began, hoping to defray any point-loss for her repeated sneaking out, but the Headmaster waved away her apologies.

“Don’t worry, my dear. You cannot be blamed, I think, for wanting to indulge in the delights of the Mirror of Erised. It has, after all, drawn in many witches and wizards far older and wiser than yourself.”

“Erised, sir? Like the inscription? I looked it up, and I couldn’t find it in the library. What does it do?” If she wasn’t in trouble, she would, perhaps, be able to get some answers.

“Tell me, Miss Potter, what do you see when you look in the mirror?” The Headmaster had a challenging glint in his eye, but Mary couldn’t see why the question was important, or what it had to do with her question.

She shrugged. “It’s always different. There’s a woman, maybe me, but older, and she’s doing different things. Does it show the future?”

“No, not the future.”

Mary waited a moment for the old man to elaborate, then decided that perhaps he wanted specifics first. “Well, when you spoke, she was with her husband and two children. Before that, she was sitting at a desk and talking to two men and another woman. I’m not sure who they were supposed to be, or what they were doing. Ummm…”

“Hmmm… perhaps a hint? The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror – he would look into it, and see himself exactly as he is.”

“So…” Mary thought for a moment, “It shows us what we want? If we’re happy in the moment, it would just be a normal mirror, but if we want something, it shows us that instead?”

“Yes and no,” Dumbledore said quietly. “It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. Someone who had never known family might see all their family standing around them. If you desired to outshine your peers, you might see yourself as head girl, or Quidditch captain. If you wished to rule the world, you might see yourself seated on a golden throne somewhere…”

Mary was quite certain that couldn’t be right. She didn’t desperately desire a husband and children, or to stand alone at the edge of a cliff, or to fight back to back with her best friends against overwhelming odds, and Future Mary had definitely been sad over that grave. “Why does what I see change, then?” she asked.

“Oh,” the old man said, “If I had to guess, and mind you, it would _be_ a guess, and nothing more, I would say your heart has not yet settled on its truest and deepest desire. You are, after all, still very young. You see yourself, in the future, living your life, in a number of different ways, because you do not know what you want your future to hold.”

Oh. Mary supposed that made enough sense. After all, the Yule magic had told her that she wanted to be herself, but she had no idea what that _meant_ , either.

The Headmaster was still talking. “This mirror shows neither knowledge nor truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible.”

A mirror that reads your mind, and shows you impossible things? A spark connected in Mary’s mind. “Professor Dumbledore, if this mirror shows things that might be, but aren’t, and may be impossible, does that mean it’s an infernal artifact?”

The old man’s gaze was suddenly sharp and piercing. “Why would you say that, Miss Potter?” he asked, all the gentle grandfatherliness gone from his voice.

Theo had been telling her and Blaise (who was much more interested in mysterious treasures than philosophy) about the Acts of the Powers just the other day, after he found Mary reading an old story called the Tale of Three Brothers. The Deathly Hallows, he said, were supposed to be deathly artifacts – actual things created by the Deathly Power, or maybe an Avatar of the Deathly Power. None of them were really sure if they believed the Hallows were real, but if this Mirror of Erised was an infernal artifact, then maybe they were.

“No reason,” she said, shrinking back from him. “I was just asking the Slytherins about the Powers, what with Yule, and someone told me that the Infernal Power governs things ‘outside of what is,’ whatever that means, and it kind of reminded me of what you were saying. That’s all.”

And then the grandfatherliness was back. “I see… No, my dear, it is nothing to worry about. It will, however, be moved to a new home tomorrow, and I must ask you not to seek it out. If you ever do run across it again, you will now be prepared. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. Remember that. Now, why don’t you put that admirable cloak back on and get off to bed?”

Mary knew a dismissal when she heard one. “Yes, sir.” She scrambled quickly to her feet, flipped the hood back up, and was gone in an instant.

* * *

Albus watched Mary Potter flip her father’s invisibility cloak over her head, then listened to her hurried footfalls leaving the room. He could do nothing but shake his head as she vanished back down to the dungeons.

Of all the reasons he had not wanted a Slytherin Girl Who Lived, this was one of them.

It bothered him that the girl had been participating in observing the Old Ways, of course, but that was a relatively minor political concern, and in any case, it wasn’t as though he could really do anything about it. Minerva had threatened his life if he disallowed the Old Ways on campus, and the board of directors, Traditionalists to a man, would have him out of the job if he made such an obvious strike against their precious heritage and culture. If she did not grow out of it, he was sure he could spin it as a nod to the past, so long as she also continued to indulge in the more modern holidays, and perhaps married someone firmly in the Progressive camp.

No, what bothered him was the fact that she had already begun to lie like the Snakes. He had slipped behind her eyes when he asked her what she knew of the Powers’ Artifacts, and she had deliberately tried to hide the Nott boy’s involvement, and her reading of the Deathly Hallows. The openness of his first interview with her was gone, or at least damaged, and she now cringed away from his inquiries. What trust she had on escaping the Dursley home was quickly dissolving as she spent more and more time in Slytherin House.

And why didn’t the mirror show her family standing around her, supporting her? Did she truly not care about the parents who gave their lives to save her? From what she said, the mirror had shown her the future, a normal enough life. He had never heard of it shifting so quickly between different scenes, but he thought he had covered well. After all, children were not normally exposed to the Mirror (he had not lied, when he said it was dangerous), and there was little written on what they might see. It had been a risk, leaving the Mirror unprotected here in the hopes that the girl would find it, but he had thought it worth it, at the time, to determine what drove the little Golden Girl.

It was also rather disturbing to see the girl make, so quickly, a connection she ought not to have been able to find. She ought not to have known about the Artifacts, or the Powers and their attributes, even. Damn that Nott boy, telling _his_ savior things no good little light girl should know! The Infernal Power was the most obscure, and perhaps the most insidious of all the dark Powers, so _of course_ the first year Slytherins were casually chatting about it over break, and speculating about the truth behind the Hallows.

Perhaps he ignored her too thoroughly over the course of her childhood. If he wanted her to stand meekly by his side when the dark returned to its strength, he would, he supposed, have to start grooming her now, for the task.

All of this would be much easier if she had just gone to Gryffindor like she was supposed to.

He sent a last, longing look at the image of his deepest wish and greatest fear – himself with his first true love, seated on matching thrones, with matching, knowing grins, the world at their feet – and conjured a dustcloth with a flick of his wrist. One could go mad, looking into the heart of desire.

###  Sunday, 29 December 1991

#### Professor McGonagall’s Office

Mary was preoccupied with the Mirror and what the visions it showed her might mean for much of the following day, but by Sunday, she had driven it from her mind entirely in her excitement over her upcoming meeting: Remus Lupin, the Last Marauder, was coming to tea!

She hadn’t said anything about it to Theo and Blaise, but they could tell by her constant fidgeting that something was going on. She was so antsy by the time lunch rolled around that the boys politely asked her to leave them alone, as Blaise put it, “until you’re able to sit still – I can’t concentrate on my transfiguration when you insist on switching spots every two minutes!” The boys were trying to figure out conjuration, which they thought was the transfiguration of air into… anything else, but they weren’t having much luck with it. Part of this might have been the fact that they refused to consult any books on the topic, and were instead just waving their wands about and thinking very hard about what they wanted to produce.

Mary did oblige them, however, in leaving them to it, and instead headed outside with the Weasleys. The twins had kidnapped Percy and a Ravenclaw girl from his year (Mary thought her name was Penny), and were planning to trap them together in an igloo. Mary, Ron, and a second-year Gryffindor (Stacy) who apparently agreed with the twins that Percy needed to lighten up, were in charge of keeping the captives petrified with the Full Body Bind Curse while the twins attempted to levitate and shift the snow into a proper igloo shape.

As soon as the captives were entombed in what ended up being more of a two-foot deep snow-cave than an igloo, despite the twins’ best efforts, the underclassmen ran for it, laughing as they tumbled back into the relative safety of the Castle, Fred and George insisting loudly all the while that Percy couldn’t take points if he couldn’t catch them. The Ravenclaw girl had seemed amused by the whole adventure, but Mary was happy she wouldn’t be sleeping in Gryffindor tower with Percy. If looks could kill, the twins would have been dead several times over.

At half four, the still-excited Slytherin reported to Professor McGonagall’s office, expecting to have to wait until the Last Marauder showed up at five. Much to her embarrassment, it turned out that he had arrived early to catch up with the Professor, and since they hadn’t entirely closed the door, Mary barged right into the middle of their meeting.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, face scarlet, and turned around to wait in the hall as soon as she realized her mistake. She had no idea at the moment who the man was that the Professor was talking to, but she almost certainly wasn’t meant to have just walked in.

Ten seconds after she found a warm spot to sit in the hall, Professor McGonagall poked her head out the door, and summoned her back.

“This,” she said, introducing her red-faced ward to the shabbily dressed man, “is Remus Lupin. Remus, meet Mary Potter.”

“Hullo, Mr. Lupin,” Mary said, shy in the face of the man she had been waiting all day (really all term, if she thought about it) to meet.

“Hello, Mary.” The man in front of her sounded confident at least. More confident, in fact, than Mary would have expected, given his tatty robes and overly-long hair.

“I suppose I’ll just leave the two of you to chat, then. Remus, will you be staying for dinner?”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t impose…

“Nonsense. I’ll have the elves bring us a tray, and we can catch up after you and Mary have had a chance to talk,” and with that, the Deputy Headmistress vacated her office, leaving the embarrassed eleven-year old and her father’s school friend to sort out their awkwardness on their own.

Mr. Lupin broke the ice by moving to sit in Professor McGonagall’s chair. He lasted only the briefest moment before he shook his head ruefully and came back around the desk to take one of the two visitors’ chairs instead. “I’ve been wondering what the view was like from the other side of this desk for twenty years,” he explained with an infectious grin, “but it’s just too weird. I couldn’t possibly talk to anyone from Minnie’s seat.”

Mary couldn’t help but laugh. “So you’ve spent a lot of time here, then?”

“More hours than I care to admit,” the man said sheepishly. “I guess from your letter back in the fall you already know that my friends and I were quite the troublemakers in school?” Mary nodded. “Well, I’m afraid I was the ‘responsible one’ in the group, so McGonagall leaned on me a bit more than the rest, hoping I could keep the others in line, I think. It never worked, of course,” he added needlessly. Mary smiled as the Last Marauder looked a bit nostalgic over his lost friends. “So, here I am in all my glory,” he said, raising his arms to gesture at his unkempt self. “What did you want talk about?”

Mary thought he probably wasn’t _trying_ to be mean, but it kind of sounded that way, as though the visit was an imposition, and he had no inclination to meet her, of his own part. “Well,” she said slowly, “I assume Professor McGonagall told you something about me, so we could start with where _you’ve_ been for the last ten years.”

The man made an ‘oof’ sound, as though he’d been hit in the stomach. “Don’t pull your punches, do you?”

She knew that wasn’t the sort of question you were expected to answer, but she did anyway, crossing her arms over her chest. “No. You were their friend. I understand I couldn’t live with you because of Professor Dumbledore’s stupid wards, but why didn’t you ever visit, or write, even?”

Remus dragged a scarred hand through his sandy-blonde hair, his face haggard. “Alright. Where haven’t I been? No, wait. I should start with this,” he met her eyes solidly. “I… I don’t have an excuse, Mary. There’s no excuse good enough for leaving you with those sorry excuses for people. I only met Petunia Evans once, and that was more than enough. After… after James and Lily and Peter were killed, and Sirius was dragged off to Azkaban, and Dumbledore whisked you off and hid you away, everyone was _celebrating_. It was awful. They were all so happy the war was over, but my life was in ruins. Everyone I cared about was dead or gone.

“I… I couldn’t face them, the happy people. I just… packed up and left. I spent a couple of years in the USSR, the Ukraine, mostly. By the time I thought I could come back, it had been too long. You would have been four, I guess, or five. You wouldn’t have known me, even if I could get the old goat to tell me where he’d hidden you. I convinced myself you wouldn’t want me showing up out of the blue, though if I’d known you were living with _Petunia_ , of all people, I would have called in a few favors and broken you out in a heartbeat. Probably why no one told me, honestly.

“I worked my way across Asia and caught a boat over to San Francisco, spent a couple years fooling around doing odd jobs in the States, then down to Buenos Aires, doing a favor for a Ukrainian friend. I came back to Europe in ’89, moved to France, spent some time in Brussels and then Germany helping muggle smugglers set up run-arounds in Berlin… suppose that was a waste of time, now the wall’s come down. And then an acquaintance from the States called in another favor, so I was in India when I got your owl. This is the first I’ve been in Britain since that November.”

“So you’ve just been off _adventuring_ , then, for the last…six years or so?”

The man, who looked much older than his thirty-odd years, gave a half-hearted shrug. “It’s a living, more or less.” The awkward silence threatened to settle in again as Mary tried to decide what to ask next. Remus didn’t let it, though. “Your turn. How are you liking Hogwarts?”

Mary tried to keep her stern ‘you abandoned me’ face in place, but failed, because there was no way she could answer that question with a frown. “Hogwarts is great. I’m a Slytherin,” she said proudly.

The former Gryffindor did a double take, and Mary realized that she wasn’t wearing her school robes, or even her green jumper. “Never would have guessed that one,” the man said.

Mary nodded. “Professor Snape’s our head of house. He’s kind of intimidating, but I kind of like him.”

“Wait, wait, wait. _Severus_ Snape?”

“Probably?” How many Snapes could there possibly be?

“Greasy git, potions prodigy, former Death Eater, _that_ Severus Snape?”

The description did rather fit, but she had to at least make a token protest. “Well, he does teach potions, but don’t call him a greasy git,” she glared at the man.

“Oh, Merlin. He became a _professor?_ James would have a fit!”

“Why?”

“Oh, um… it’s nothing. He was in our year, and we, erm… didn’t get along, that’s all.”

Mary was certain that wasn’t the whole story, but she let it go. “ _Anyway_ , Professor Snape is my head of House, and I have two close friends, Lilian Moon in Slytherin and Hermione Granger in Ravenclaw. I’ve been hanging out with Theo and Blaise all week, though, because Lils and Maia went home for the hols. The first month or so was kind of awful, because the Slytherins didn’t think I should be in their house because, well, the whole Dark Lord thing, even though it wasn’t _my_ fault. But then I set a snake on Draco Malfoy to prove that I have to belong in Slytherin, because where _else_ should a parselmouth go, and since then it’s been a lot better.”

“Parselmouth?” Remus looked a bit peaky.

“I talk to snakes,” Mary said with a little ‘it’s no big deal’ shrug. She was inordinately pleased with that talent, especially after she realized how rare it was.

“I know. I have a friend in India whose family are all parselmouths. I also know that most of Britain considers it a dark talent. No one’s been giving you any trouble over it, have they?”

The girl raised an eyebrow at the much older wizard before she answered, wondering exactly what he intended to do about it if they had. “Oh, no, not really. I mean, most of the non-Slytherins have avoided me since it came out, but they avoid most of the other Slytherins all the time anyway, so it’s hard to say if they’re avoiding me because of the parseltongue thing or the Slytherin thing. Same difference, really.”

Remus looked as though he really didn’t want to say the next sentence, but he forced himself to anyway. “You, erm, know that… you-know-who was also…?”

“Yes, and now everyone thinks it’s a sign of an evil wizard. Professor McGonagall told me. It’s fine. I don’t care. I’m not going to hide it, and I’m not evil either, so they’ll just have to get used to it.”

“You are very much your mother’s daughter,” the man said with a smile.

Mary didn’t know what to say to that, so she ignored it. “Well, aside from that, it’s been a pretty exciting year. There was the thing with the troll on Halloween –”

“Troll?” Lupin interrupted again.

“Yeah. We think they were keeping a troll in one of the sub-dungeons for some stupid obstacle course, and it escaped.”

“There’s an obstacle course in the dungeons?”

“Well,” Mary said, considering the statement, “It’s not a very _good_ one. I went in with Maia and Lils, and Lilian’s sister Aerin, who’s a second-year. There’s a cerberus on the third floor, and then a room full of Devil’s Snare, and a room with all these flying keys, and then a room I guess they haven’t finished yet, and the one where they were keeping the troll that’s just empty and smelly now, and then a room with a bunch of different potions and this black fire you’re supposed to go through. We got stuck there because we decided that had to be something Professor Snape came up with, and there had to be a trick to it, but we couldn’t figure it out and didn’t want to poison ourselves or something.”

“How did you get out?”

“We, erm… had to call a house elf. It was kind of embarrassing. Professor Snape gave me five points for not trusting his clue, and Professor Flitwick made us each write four feet on what we learned from it. On a Sunday. It was awful.”

“…okay, then. So about the troll?”

“Right! The troll! Quirrell, that’s the DADA professor, came running into the Halloween Feast screaming about a troll in the dungeons. The Headmaster tried to send us all to our common rooms, so of course Slytherin evacuated outside, because, I mean, really? If there’s a troll in the dungeons, we obviously _shouldn’t_ go back there. And then some of the Professors chased it out onto the lawns, so we got to see it up close, which was really scary.”

“Wow. That does sound like an interesting term. Anything else big happen?”

Mary bit her lip for a moment in an unconscious imitation of Lilian. “Just two things. Erm, back in the beginning of November, I was in Flying class playing seeker games with Malfoy, and my broom just stopped listening to me. It kept going up and was trying to shake me off, so I finally had to let go when it dropped down, and I was in Hospital overnight.”

“Merlin’s balls! How high were you when you fell?” Remus looked like he very much wanted to storm out and hurt someone over this latest revelation.

“Forty feet, maybe? It’s okay, I didn’t even break anything, I just had to stay for magical exhaustion.”

“Did they ever figure out what happened?”

Mary shrugged. “Maia and Lilian are convinced that Quirrell is trying to kill us because we think he was dueling with Professor Snape over Halloween, but nothing bad has happened since then, so I think it was just a crappy school broom. We’re still using Comet 110s for class. I’m getting a Nimbus over the summer. I can’t wait to see how nice flying is on a _real_ broom.”

“You like flying, then?”

“It’s only the best thing ever,” Mary grinned. “Do you?”

Remus shivered, “No, decidedly not. Your dad was a chaser, and… never mind. But no, I’d rather stay safely on the ground.”

“And? What and?”

“Ah, you, um, know about Sirius Black?”

“Yeah. Betrayed everyone, killed Peter, got sent to Azkaban for life? Hagrid told me. I had just found out that magic was real and my parents were murdered, though, so it wasn’t _that_ big a shock, you know, next to that.”

“Oh, well, I was going to say he was a beater.”

Remus looked awfully sad and uncomfortable, and Mary thought she knew why. “You miss him, don’t you? Even though he turned out to be a really terrible person.”

The blond man gave her a sad smile. “I know I shouldn’t, but he was a part of my life every bit as much as your dad. More, even, since we lived together after school for a bit, when James and Lily first got married. And I never saw it coming. I blame myself, you know.”

“I don’t,” Mary said, her voice suddenly too loud. “Black made his own choices. You didn’t force him to, or anything.”

“Thank you,” the man said quietly. “It… that means a lot. Really.”

“Well,” said Mary, in an attempt to lighten the mood, “I do blame you for never figuring out that Dumbledore left me with Petunia and breaking me out, but…”

He made the same ‘oof’ noise again. “I was going to say this earlier, but are you sure you’re James’ kid? Sirius was the one with the sharp tongue.”

Mary laughed. “No, but I hear I get that from my mum.”

“Yeah, she could be a mean one, that Lily Evans. Had to be, I suppose. She grew up with Snape, you know.”

“No, I didn’t. He never mentioned…”

“He probably just thinks it’s not appropriate for the Head of Slytherin to be anything less than perfectly aloof and mysterious. I distinctly remember him complaining about Slughorn, he was the Head of Slytherin when we were in school, being too jolly and personable.”

Mary sniggered. “Yeah, he’s more the intimidating, fluttery cloak and penetrating stares sort.”

“Alright,” Remus said, changing the subject, “I think I’m ready. You said the broom accident was one thing. What was the other?”

“Oh! I got a present on Christmas, and the note said it belonged to my father. He had lent it to someone, and they finally decided to give it back. The note said something like ‘use it well, and Merry Christmas.’”

“What was it?” the wizard asked, raising an eyebrow.

“A cloak of invisibility, or maybe an invisibility cloak? I’m not really sure what they’re called…”

“Oh, Merlin. The invisibility cloak! That takes me back. Yeah, James’ father let him bring it to school third year. I’m kind of surprised it still works. It’s been in your family for a while, and they don’t normally last more than twenty or thirty years.”

“Do you know who would have sent it to me? You were my first thought, but the note didn’t match your handwriting.”

Remus sighed. “Unfortunately no, I can’t think who he would have let borrow it, outside of myself and Sirius, and if Sirius had it, it would be in the evidence lockup at the Ministry. Even Peter wasn’t that close with him at the end. Have you used it for sneaking out yet?”

Mary smirked. She hadn’t really expected the man to know who had had the cloak, but it was a good change of subject. “Well, I’m not admitting to anything, understand, but if I _did_ , I wouldn’t have gone anywhere I hadn’t already explored without it…”

“So you _are_ a little Marauder! Tell me, have you found the kitchens yet?”

The remainder of the time until dinner passed amicably enough, filled with stories of the Marauders’ adventures at school. By the time Professor McGonagall returned, Mary had successfully extracted a promise to write, and had learned of three new secret passages, one of which led straight into Hogsmeade. Just as Mary was about to leave for dinner, Remus called her back and handed her a small, wrapped present with a belated “Merry Christmas.” She waited until she reached her room to open it, and found a tiny, empty box which was much larger on the inside than the outside. The note said it would open only for the first person to open it, and Mary was delighted to find, when she made Theo and Blaise test it, that this appeared to be true.

###  Friday, 30 December 1991 – Saturday, 11 January 1992

#### Hogwarts

Except for the third of January, the rest of break turned into an indistinguishable blur of practicing magic and playing in the snow, sitting around the common room alone or with the boys, and teasing them over their continued refusal to actually seriously pursue conjuration (while still pretending to try, for some reason she never understood).

The weather grew milder, and letters more frequent. Mary wrote to Hermione and Lilian as well as to Remus, who had gone back to France. She sent thank-you notes to the Grangers and the Professor (and Remus, though that was really just part of the longer letter she to him).

Around New Year’s, the Gryffindors finally got tired of endless snowball fights, and two of the older girls petitioned Professor McGonagall to teach them how to transfigure ice skates. This led to skating lessons on the lake, in which even the other Slytherins participated. Blaise was, to Mary’s surprise, very good, and by the end of the holidays, even Theo was passable. Mary was perfectly good at going forward, and even faster on skates than on foot, but she just didn’t have the knack for going backward.

The twins were decent enough at the new sport, but thought it was boring just skating in circles, so they decided to build a sledding hill instead. They spent three days levitating all the snow they could into an enormous pile and packing it down to create a track, and somehow convinced Professor McGonagall to make them a sled. A few brooms to transport people to the top of the hill, and they were in business, sliding down and then flying back up, and occasionally pelting other sled-goers with aerial snowballs as they made their way down the hill.

Even Professor Snape joined in the carefree attitude of the latter half of the break: One day near sunset, when the students were trooping back into the castle after a long afternoon of skating, he called out to Mary, Theo, and Blaise that something appeared to be amiss with Mary’s scarf. She looked at it, confused, only to see it turn from red to green before her eyes. She laughed and waved at him, wondering how long it would take Professor McGonagall to change it back, but when the older witch noticed after breakfast the next morning, she simply sniffed and said, “Aurora wins the bet, I see.”

Despite the interest in muggle holidays like Christmas (and apparently Easter, according to their spring schedule), New Year’s Day was not celebrated at Hogwarts, and passed entirely unmarked. The only break in the pleasant monotony of the holiday was Mary’s visit to her guardianship caseworker on the first Friday of the new year.

Mary had been to Sub Lemon Alley three times, now, and the meeting always followed the same pattern – Mr. Fulton would ask her whether she was happy, and if she had everything she needed or wanted, and then they spent the rest of the hour talking about recent developments in her life. She had, after some consideration, not told him about the Troll Incident or the Broom Incident (because she didn’t want him to think she wasn’t safe at school), but she did tell him about the Yule ritual and Remus Lupin’s visit, and even the very strange discussion with the Headmaster over the Mirror of Erised, which she had meant to tell Lupin about, but forgot. She didn’t even consider talking about the purpose of the Stupidly Easy Obstacle Course until she was stumbling out of the Professor’s floo.

By the time the horseless carriages rolled up the main drive on the 13th of January, Mary was well-rested, content, and (to her surprise) more than ready for everyone to return and classes to resume.

One really could throw only _so many_ snowballs, after all.


	14. Chapter 13: Confrontations

###  January – February, 1992

#### Hogwarts

After the holidays, life quickly resumed its normal pace within the castle. One class followed the next, and there continued to be a general lack of attempts to kill Mary (or Hermione, or Lilian). Mary returned to spending most of her time with Lilian and Hermione, while Blaise and, to a lesser extent, Theo, went back to their casual association with Daphne. Aradia Carmichael and her friends took back their favored spot in the common room (and Mary still didn’t know what was so special about it).

About halfway through January, Hermione found a book on Cursed Fire that someone had left on a table in the library. This provided the answer to the question of what, exactly, those black flames in the obstacle course were, and how they could be countered. Apparently there really was a potion to let you pass, something called Heart of Ice, but the book gave no more details, so the Ravenclaws shifted their focus from fires to potions in search of more information.

Imbolc, in early February, passed unmarked by the Slytherins. Mary wasn’t sure if this was because most Slytherins were from dark families, and didn’t celebrate it, or because it was meant to be marked independently, and after a week and a half of not-remembering to ask Theo every time she saw him outside of class, she decided it didn’t matter. He did ask his father to send her a book on the Powers, though, and Hermione, as predicted, found it fascinating.

Nothing of note occurred until the Gryffindor/Hufflepuff Quidditch match in mid-February. After Gryffindor’s spectacular loss to Slytherin in the November match, and Hufflepuff’s loss to Slytherin in January, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff were competing for last place. Lilian and Hermione had debated not attending the match at all, because neither of their houses were playing, and the match wasn’t likely to affect the outcome of the cup, but Mary insisted they go.

She was glad she did, though Hermione said it was stupid.

Stupid or not, it was an historic event: In what had to be the biggest display of dumb luck, _ever_ in _any_ sort of sporting event since the beginning of time, the snitch practically flew into the Gryffindor seeker not ten minutes into the game. The score was 150-10, and Thorpe still looked baffled as his team carried him off the field.

As the students were filing out of the stands, Theo appeared at Lilian’s side, insisting that she and Mary needed to stick around for an emergency first-year Slytherin meeting. Hermione went on ahead as the Slytherins doubled back to meet the rest of their year mates.

Blaise and Daphne had cornered Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle in the Gryffindor section of the stands.

“I just don’t understand why you can’t get it through your thick head,” the Italian boy was nearly shouting at Malfoy. “You can’t just go around breaking the truce and then having your pet gorillas here beat up whatever poor sap you’ve been picking on!”

“What’s going on?” Lilian asked quietly.

(“Who’re you callin’ a gorilla?” Crabbe asked angrily.)

Pansy started to say something about Blaise going crazy for no reason, but Daphne talked over her. “Malfoy, apparently, decided that it would be a good idea to bring up the fate of the Longbottoms at the hands of his Auntie Bella just after the end of the war.”

(“ _You_ , you complete and utter _moron_!”)

“Longbottom went berserk and punched him in the face, and then Vinnie and Greg beat the ever-loving crap out of him.”

(“Just because you –”)

(“Shut up, Malfoy, I’m not done with you!”)

“The littlest weasel had to get his prefect brother to take Longbottom to the hospital wing. Poor sap couldn’t even walk.”

“So all this is about… what?” Mary asked. She didn’t have a problem with her housemates sticking up for Neville – they probably should more often, or at least lay off him, since he was such an easy target – but it seemed a bit out of character for them.

(“…prancing around with your name and your money as though that actually _matters_ here…”)

“The _truce_ , Potter. Don’t be thick.”

“We’re having an intervention on the fact that Malfoy can’t keep his damn mouth shut?” Lilian sounded very pleased.

(“…bloody _slow_? It’s only a matter of fucking time until you do something like this, today, in public, _like today_ , and start the next bloody war right here at Hogwarts!”)

“More or less,” Daphne shrugged.

“You’re all being stupid,” Pansy said, trying to grab Malfoy’s arm and pull him away from the now-shouting Blaise.

The Italian broke off his tirade long enough to point his wand threateningly at Pansy. “Back off or I’ll hex you into next week.”

And then suddenly Millie and Tracy were pointing their wands at Blaise, and Theo and Daphne were covering Millie and Tracy, and Pansy took aim at Theo, who was right next to Lilian, so Lilian pointed at her as well, and Tracy switched her aim to Lilian, so Mary felt the need to target Tracy, but Theo was in the way, and Daphne already had Tracy covered, anyway.

Tracy targeted Daphne back, and Mary decided to aim for Draco, just because nobody else was. Vinnie and Greg, who had mostly just been looking confused, targeted Mary for pointing at Draco, so she switched her aim to Greg, and Lilian targeted Vinnie, which worked out because Blaise was still covering Pansy.

A long second later, Vinnie, who apparently had just realized there was a wand trained on him, belatedly switched to threatening Lilian.

Draco looked around, realized that there were six people more or less on his side, and only five on Blaise’s, smirked, and was halfway to pointing his wand at Blaise when Blaise punched him in the face.

Things went downhill from there. It was a bit chaotic, between different shouted curses and Draco’s nasally whinging that punching a bloke in the nose _wasn’t fair_ , and _my father will hear about this, Zabini!_

When the last of the sparks cleared, Mary was writhing and laughing uncontrollably on the ground, and Lilian had been hit with some kind of silencing jinx. Daphne was just standing around angrily with her arms crossed, but when she opened her mouth, they could see she was the victim of a Tongue-Lengthening Hex, and thus equally unable to speak.

Vinnie, Greg, and Pansy were all under the Full Body Bind, and Millie looked like she was dead, but Theo, who appeared to be the only one who escaped unscathed, said she was only stunned. Pansy was short a nose, so she, like Draco, was unable to pronounce any useful spells. Blaise had been hit with a Bat Bogey Hex, and therefore had a hell of a bloody nose, but was not incapacitated. When Pansy tried to kick him for taking her nose off, he put her under the Full Body Bind as well.

Theo cancelled the jinxes on Mary, Lilian and Daphne, who held Draco at wandpoint so that Theo could tend to Blaise’s nose, too. Daphne silenced him, because, in her words, “I think we hear enough of his blubbering in the common room, don’t you?”

Nose repaired, Blaise rounded on Draco again. “Listen to me Malfoy, and listen well,” he said in his most threatening tone. “You _will_ keep the truce, or I will personally make you regret it. I will trounce you like a bloody muggle if that is what it takes to get this through your pasty blonde skull. The truce is sacred, and you will not break it, lest the rest of the fucking _school_ turn on _all_ of us. You know how you know this is serious? My family _wasn’t even involved_ in your _fucking_ war, and I’m telling you to belt up.”

“You can dig at Longbottom for being a Gryffindor,” Lilian said, taking over, “or for being an easy target, or a worthless excuse for a wizard, but I’m with Blaise. If you bring up his parents and the war, you’re breaking the truce, and I’ll see you iced out before I let the rest of the school turn on Slytherin over your bloody stupidity.”

Lilian looked to Mary, and she stepped forward, only slightly reluctantly. “I don’t like you, Draco Malfoy,” she said slowly, in her best imitation of Professor Snape. “Even if I was willing to forgive your indiscretions on the train, your little pranks at the beginning of the year gave a bad first impression to say the least. Perhaps you’ve forgotten? Break the truce again, _< and I will send my friends to hunt you down and end you>_.” It really didn’t matter that the boy couldn’t understand the last half of the threat – the sound of Parsel alone was enough to make him nearly wet himself.

Daphne stepped up with an aristocratic sniff. House Greengrass was nearly as old and rich as House Malfoy, if more neutral and _slightly_ less politically active. “Just so we’re clear, that means you, and your goons, and your girlfriend there and her hangers-on are _all_ to mind your tongues. No going after the light idiots for being light. No going after muggleborns for being muggleborn. And if you break the first rule to get back at us for this little intervention, I’m sure we’ll have no problem getting all the upper years to deny you.”

“You’re making Slytherin look bad,” Theo quietly informed the red-faced boy. “And worse, you’re making all the dark houses look bad. My father has the same reputation as yours, and I, for one, would like to avoid bringing up all that… unpleasantness, if you please. If you refuse to comply, well… I’m sure we can think of _some_ way to punish you… appropriately. Shunning and public humiliation will be only the beginning.”

Mary thought this rather paled in comparison to her Parsel death-threat, but then again, no one else knew what she’d said. “We could always write his mum,” she suggested. Draco paled dramatically. Lilian snorted. “That’s what Morgana Yaxley threatened him with on the train.”

“Right,” Daphne summarized, “Keep the truce and make sure your friends do the same, or we will bring your shiny little world down around your ears. Are we done here, Blaise?”

The taller boy looked down his nose at the still-silenced, terrified Malfoy. He looked quite fearsome, covered in blood and glaring his displeasure. “Oh, yes. We’re done. Mark this, _boy_. It’s your last warning.”

The five Slytherins still standing made their way down and out of the stands, leaving the blond behind.

As soon as they left the pitch, Blaise asked, “Is he following us?”

Mary and Daphne both looked around, but Daphne was the first to say no.

Blaise groaned. “You owe me, Theo.”

The smaller boy smirked. “Are you sure you don’t owe me? You’ve been wanting to punch Malfoy in the face for months.”

“ _You_ didn’t get Bat-Bogeyed, so yeah, you owe me. I’ll be nice though. A little favor.”

Theo sighed. “Fine. But only if I get veto-power.”

Blaise waved a dismissive hand at his friend. “Whatever. It won’t be that bad, anyway.”

“So are you saying all that was _Theo’s_ idea?” Lilian asked.

“Of course it was,” Daphne explained with a smirk. “Didn’t you notice? He’s the only Death Eater’s kid in our year that doesn’t follow Malfoy around like a pet puppy. If they start drawing fire for breaking the truce, you can bet he’ll be a target along with them.”

“You would be, too!” the boy objected. “Unless you think the other houses are actually capable of discriminating between those of us whose parents were on the wrong side of the war and those whose families are just dark,” he pointed at Blaise, “or who are just ‘slimy snakes’ and therefore evil.”

“Oh, come off it!” Mary objected, but Lilian interrupted her.

“No, he probably has a point, actually. I mean, how much do we know about the Gryffindor or Hufflepuff first-year cliques?”

“And we make an effort to show a united front,” Blaise reminded her.

“Ugh, fine. I’m just saying it’s stupid,” Mary said, just as Daphne pointed out, “Maybe we ought to make more of an effort to scope out the Gryffinpuffs.”

“Why bother?” Lilian asked. “They’re a bunch of idiots as far as I’ve seen.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Daphne’s casual tone was sarcastically false. “Maybe so we know where the lines of power and influence run in the rest of the school, and not just Slytherin?”

“Besides,” Theo added, “They’re not _all_ idiots. That Hufflepuff Smith would make a good ally, and Fay Dunbar is downright _sly_ for a Gryffindor. She’s sabotaged the littlest weasel’s potion three weeks in a row now.”

“Oh, you saw that too?” Blaise asked. “Any idea what the Weasel did to peeve her off?”

“I heard her complaining to Roper that he helped the Twins pull some kind of prank on the Gryffindor girls as soon as they came back after break,” Daphne suggested.

The five Slytherins were finally nearing the castle. The sun was setting, and dinner had likely already started. They began, without any conscious decision, to hurry their steps, and were just approaching the main doors when one of the side entries cracked open. The bright torchlight beyond showed an overly-large, be-turbaned silhouette creeping out of the castle.

Lilian spotted him first. “Hey! Is that Quirrell?”

“Looks like,” Blaise confirmed.

“Looks like he’s headed off toward the forest,” Daphne added unnecessarily.

“We should follow him!”

“Why, in all the nine hells, would we do that, Moon?” Theo asked in a positively scathing tone.

“He’s up to something. Obviously.”

“Lils, you and Maia are the only ones who believe that,” Mary cautioned her friend.

“Well, I mean, he _is_ the DADA professor,” Daphne pointed out. “I think it’s in the contract that he has to act minimally suspicious, or else get pregnant and leave.”

“Daphne!” Blaise was miming clawing at his eyes. “Why would you put that picture in my head?”

“What?” Theo didn’t seem to see the problem.

“PREGNANT QUIRRELL,” Mary, Lilian, and Blaise chorused.

Daphne smiled sweetly, “Because I’m evil. Obviously.”

Lilian looked at the figure retreating across the lawn and quickly changed the subject back to more important matters. “I’m going to follow him. Are you guys coming?”

“No,” Theo said. “I’m going to get dinner, and then Blaise should probably go see Madam Pomfrey, because he lost a lot of blood,” the boy in question nodded, “and if Malfoy doesn’t show up soon, we’ll have to send Professor Snape after him.”

“I’m with Theo,” Daphne said. “It’s cold out, and I’m hungry.”

“Liz?” Lilian had a determined look in her eye.

Mary caved. “Fine! But only to prove to you that nothing’s going on.” Lilian started to drag Mary away by the arm as she called back to the others, asking them to tell Hermione where they went, if she came looking for them.

“All _right_ , I’m coming. Let go of my arm,” Mary shook Lilian off, digging through her pockets for a certain Christmas present. After a moment, she found it.

“What’s that?” Lilian asked, watching Mary fiddle with the small box.

“I got it for Christmas. Not sure from who. Come on, let’s get out of sight.”

They ducked into a deeper patch of shadows, and Mary drew the invisibility cloak out of the box. It had taken her some days after Remus’ visit, but she had eventually decided that she had nothing more important to keep in a box only she could open, and it fit better in her pocket in the box.

“Is that an _invisibility cloak_?” Lilian’s voice held a note of awe. Mary nodded. “You’ve been holding out on us, Potter!”

Mary just gave her a look. “It didn’t come up. Do you want to follow Quirrell or not?”

Lilian nodded, still talking as Mary threw the cloak over the two of them. “Do you know how rare these things are? Who the hell would give one to a schoolgirl? And why are you carrying it around with you? Aren’t you worried it will get lost or stolen or something?”

“No, I wasn’t. And no, I didn’t. It used to be my dad’s, apparently, and I have no idea who sent it. No one else knows I have it.”

They ducked into the trees on the edge of the forest, following the crunch of Quirrell’s footsteps, and trying to avoid stepping on any large sticks themselves.

“Not even Hermione?”

“No. And shut up. It’s not a cloak of _silence_.”

Lilian, thankfully, _did_ shut up, just in time for the girls to hear another, much quieter, set of footsteps behind them. Mary pulled them off the path and Professor Snape glided past. They crept a bit closer, until they could just make out the professors’ silhouettes through the trees.

“D-don’t know why you wanted t-t-to meet here of all p-places, Severus…” Quirrell was saying.

“Oh, I thought we’d keep this private. Students aren’t supposed to know about the Philosopher’s Stone, after all.”

Lilian gasped, and Mary clapped a hand over her mouth, missing the next thing Quirrell said.

Professor Snape interrupted him. “Have you figured out how to get past that beast of Hagrid’s yet?”

“B-b-but Severus, I –”

“You don’t want me as your enemy, Quirrell.” Snape stepped toward the stuttering man.

“I-I don’t know what you –”

“You know perfectly well what I mean.” An owl hooted loudly, and then the girls heard Professor Snape say, “…your little bit of hocus-pocus. I’m waiting.”

“B-but I d-d-don’t –”

“Very well,” Professor Snape sounded irritated, though that could have been because of either the refusal or the stuttering. “We’ll have another little chat soon, when you’ve had time to think things over and decided where your loyalties lie.” And with that, he turned and strode out of the clearing, directly past the girls. Quirrell followed shortly, and the girls waited to make sure they wouldn’t run into him before they turned back themselves.

“Don’t say a word,” Mary said, as she finally took her hand away from Lilian’s face.

The taller girl smirked. “Fine. I won’t. But I told you so!” She ducked out from under the cloak to avoid Mary’s swat at her head, and the two Slytherins silently followed their professors back up to the Castle.

Just before they finally entered the Great Hall, Lilian said, “You know we’re going to have to tell Hermione.”

Mary sighed. “Yes, and I’m sure she’ll be insufferable about it.”

Lilian smirked again, and the two turned their attention to pudding, dodging the questions of their friendlier housemates and ignoring the glares of Malfoy’s clique.

* * *

The next day, between writing their History essays and practicing Charms, Mary and Lilian related their adventure in the forest and the conversation they had overheard. Hermione, as predicted, was insufferable about it. She managed to get in about five more I-told-you-so’s before Mary was irritated enough to practice her Silencing Charm on her friend.

After that, she calmed down considerably, at least until Lilian told her that Mary had been holding out on them, and had an invisibility cloak. Then she demanded to see it, and scolded Mary for carrying it around with her. Apparently even Hermione (and Mary had no idea how), knew that they were very rare, very expensive, and not at all the sort of thing you ought to keep in your pocket, box or no box. She promised with a sigh to keep the cloak in her room from then on, if only Hermione would shut up about it.

The Ravenclaw insisted that they look up the Philosopher’s Stone right away, and was most put out to find that all references to it had been removed from the card catalogue. Magical Stones and Magical Artifacts, in contrast, had so many entries that it would be impossible to read them all in any reasonable time. Defeated for the moment, she resolved in a huff to ask her older housemates if they had any idea what the mysterious Philosopher’s Stone was supposed to do, and irritably returned to their regularly scheduled Sunday afternoon homework.

It was not until Thursday evening in Astronomy that Hermione finally announced she had an answer: One of the Ravenclaw prefects had told her that the Philosopher’s Stone was an alchemical product that could be used to create unlimited quantities of gold from base metals like lead, and more famously, to produce something called the Elixir of Life, which conferred immortality on the drinker… as long as one kept drinking it. Hermione added that the Harcourt, her prefect, seemed to be under the impression that the Stone had been created as a bit of a joke. It was called the Philosopher’s Stone because it realized an age old philosophical question – what would a man do with as much money as he could ever use, and no fear of death? Apparently the answer was go set up house in Devon with his wife and do research, because that’s what Nicholas Flamel did.

The three girls held a quiet argument over the course of the class, between calculating angles and filling in their star charts. Mary had just measured the location of Venus relative to Polaris for the third time and gotten a third different answer when Hermione and Lilian reached an agreement.

“Right, so you agree we’ll have to go and talk to him about it!”

“Of course!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

“Wait, what just happened?” Mary looked up from scratching out Venus _again_ to see her two friends glaring at each other. Last she had been paying attention, Hermione had been insisting that Professor Snape’s threatening Quirrell had sounded very suspicious, and perhaps he was the one after the Stone. Lilian had been defending their Head of House, and Mary, before she had turned to her sextant at Professor Sinistra’s pointed look, had been arguing that they needed more information.

“We agree with you,” Lilian informed her. “We’ll go talk to Professor Snape during his office hours.”

“That wasn’t what I was suggesting at all,” Mary said, banging her head lightly against one of the crenellations at the edge of the roof of the tower. She was absolutely _certain_ that confronting Professor Snape would not turn out well. She would rather confront Quirrell, and the very thought of his garlic-infused presence was enough to give her a headache.

“Too late,” Hermione said lightly. “We’ve decided and you’re outvoted.”

“Ugh,” Mary groaned. “You guys are _killing_ me!”

But nothing she said could sway them, and so, two days later, the trio stood nervously in the hall outside Professor Snape’s office, waiting for the previous student to vacate it.

* * *

After nearly twenty minutes, the student who had been talking to Professor Snape left in a rush, trying to hide the tears running down his face. He slammed the door behind him, and after a few minutes of silent poking and whispers of “you knock,” and “this was  _your_ idea,” Mary was pushed forward to tap tentatively on the door.

“Enter.”

The girls did so, Mary poking her head around the door first, followed by Lilian and Hermione. The professor raised an eyebrow at them, but said nothing, simply conjuring a third visitor’s chair in front of his desk.

All four of them sat, the girls all equally reluctant to begin speaking, their professor, as always, maintaining a mask of calm over his general irritation at having to deal with students. After thirty seconds of silence, he snapped at them: “If you have a question, ask it. If not, I have better things to do than sit here and stare at you.”

Hermione jumped, and the Slytherins flinched. “We, erm, sir, that is…” the Ravenclaw began tentatively.

“Spit it out, Miss Granger. You certainly have no trouble talking in class.”

Hermione took a deep breath and then said, very fast, “Sir, we were wondering about the Philosopher’s Stone, and what’s going on between you, sir, and Professor Quirrell.”

The professor pinched the bridge of his nose and gave them a look of utter disdain. “How, pray tell, did you find out about the Stone?”

“We followed you, sir,” Lilian admitted, “and heard you and Professor Quirrell talking about it.”

“You… followed... me?” the man asked, dangerously slowly.

Mary thought it was about time to chime in. “Well, actually,” she explained, “we were following Quirrell, sorry _Professor_ Quirrell, because Lilian and Hermione were sure he was up to something, and it just so happened that it was you, sir, that he was meeting with.”

Professor Snape sighed. “And what possessed you to bring the subject up with me?”

“Well, sir,” Hermione seemed to have recovered from her initial nervousness, “we, that is, I found out from one of the older Ravenclaws what exactly the Stone is supposed to do, and we thought that the conversation Lizzie and Lili overheard sounded, possibly, like either you or Professor Quirrell might be, well… attempting to steal it.”

“Miss Moon? Miss Potter? Do you agree with your friend’s assessment?” The Slytherins nodded tentatively. “And what, precisely, did you hope to accomplish by this meeting?” their Head of House asked, his voice dry as ever.

Lilian spoke first. “I wanted to convince Hermione that you were trying to protect the Stone, and Liz that Quirrell is definitely up to something. Sir.”

“I thought this whole meeting was a bad idea, sir, but I wanted to see what would happen,” Mary defended her presence.

“And for the benefit of your friends, why was this meeting a bad idea?”

“Because, sir, either way, if you were trying to steal the stone or not, you would say Quirrell was, and if you were, you would now know that we’re on to you. Um. Not that I think you are. Sir.”

“Very good, Miss Potter.” The professor turned to the other girls. “You would do well to listen to your friend’s arguments next time.”

Hermione gave a huff. “Will you at least tell us if the Stone is at the end of that stupid obstacle course?”

Professor Snape smiled coldly. “It is not. Did you honestly think that anyone in this school would protect the Stone so poorly as _that_? The obstacle course is merely a diversion. You will, of course, keep that information to yourselves, and, I trust, refrain from further drawing attention to yourselves.”

There was a chorus of ‘yes, sir,’ in response to this pronouncement, and the professor nodded toward the door. “Very good. Send in the next student.”

The girls slipped out of the office with polite farewells and thanks, sending in the next girl before parting ways.

All three of them were rather subdued, but even Professor Snape’s warning did not seem to dent Hermione’s curiosity, as she said before heading back to her tower, “I think we’re going to need to keep an even closer eye on Quirrell from now on.”

Lilian nodded her agreement, entirely serious, while Mary rolled her eyes before acquiescing. _How many more weeks of this?_ She wondered as she and Lilian made their way back to their common room, _because this whole mystery thing is getting old._


	15. Chapter 14: On the Care and Keeping of Dragons

###  May – June 1992

#### Hogwarts

If Mary hadn’t known what real magic looked like, she might have called the way that time seemed to speed up over the course of her second term at Hogwarts ‘magical.’ She would probably have gone so far as to say it was some sort of dark, insidious curse, because at some point between the girls’ conversation with Professor Snape and the Easter Holiday, it seemed as though she blinked, and a large chunk of time simply vanished (this despite all the hours she spent trapped in Binns’ class, desperately bored and feeling as though time might actually be going backward).

Lilian and Hermione had vowed back in February to keep a closer eye on Professor Quirrell, but aside from getting increasingly dottier – wandering the halls after dinner talking to himself and twitching violently at loud noises – he appeared to be perfectly harmless. If anything, he was looking a bit ill, hardly ever bothering even to stand to lecture anymore, and his skin seemed to sag off his bones. Lilian made a joke after class one day to the effect that perhaps he had taken the job because he already knew he was dying, and though Mary had laughed along with the rest of the Slytherins, she couldn’t help but think there might be a kernel of truth in it. After all, the job did have a fifty-percent fatality rate, and if you were already dying, there were worse things to do than spend your last year at Hogwarts.

When April arrived, there was a distinct up-tick in the amount of homework the students were assigned, all in the name of revising, and Hermione had several minor panic attacks over the fact that exams were _only_ ten weeks away. After the second one, Mary and Lilian started taking turns smacking their friend across the face when she started going off on one of her tirades (which was a surprisingly effective grounding technique), and they flatly refused to allow her to follow the obsessive revision schedule she laid out for herself.

They did, however, shamelessly take advantage of her notes, which were color-coded and cross-referenced with little muggle organizer tabs. In many cases, she had included _actual footnotes_. Mary was fairly certain that she learned more from reading Hermione’s notes than she did from all of Binns’ lectures combined. Even her Potions notes were phenomenal, which was surprising in and of itself, since Professor Snape rarely lectured on the theoretical aspects of potion-making. When pressed, Hermione admitted that those notes were derived from a number of different sources, none of which was the class lectures. Lilian told her she should sell copies to the Gryffindors, but the Ravenclaw primly refused, saying that they were perfectly capable of looking up all the necessary references themselves, and they’d never learn anything if she did the work _for_ them.

The students were given a week off for Easter, from a Thursday through the following Wednesday. This break passed largely unnoticed, aside from the change in the class schedule, as everyone was given several essays to complete “over the holiday.” Only a few people, mostly Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, went home. The Traditionalist Slytherins complained amongst themselves that they were not given an equinox or Walpurgis break (though hardly any of them celebrated the spring equinox, and, according to Morgana, you had to be at least fifteen to join in the Walpurgis celebration), but no one actually tried to do anything about it, since the older years had even more revising to deal with than the firsties.

While the trio had always spent a good deal of time in the library (due to a general lack of places for groups of friends from different houses to spend time together inside, and terrible weather outside), they were now spending much more of that time actually working, and less of it writing notes to each other and playing quiet games in mostly-deserted corners of the stacks.

###  Sunday, 3 May 1992

#### Hogwarts’ Library

The girls were at their usual library table on the first Sunday in May, which was one of the first really fine days of the year, waiting for Hermione to finish revising her latest Transfiguration essay (Mary and Lilian had decided theirs were good enough ages before), when Aerin appeared, flushed and excited.

“Guess what!” she exclaimed, as loudly as one could exclaim when surrounded by studious revisers and the ever-present Madam Pince.

“What?” Lilian and Mary chorused.

“Just a minute, Aer,” Hermione mumbled, making another adjustment to her grammar. “Okay, what?”

Aerin looked around quickly to make sure everyone else was paying attention to their own work, and motioned for the first-years to put their heads together. “Hagrid’s got a dragon’s egg!” she whispered.

 _“WHAT?”_ Lilian’s reaction completely negated any attempt at subtlety on Aerin’s part. Her sister shushed her, but it was too late – the ever-watchful librarian was already bearing down on them to kick them out of the library for the rest of the day.

“Where the bloody hell did Hagrid get a dragon egg?” Lilian asked, after they finished packing up their things and relocating to a tree by the lake.

“I don’t know,” Aerin said. She sounded somewhat disappointed. “He wouldn’t say, which is a bit unlike him, really, but I suppose it is _really_ illegal.”

“He’s not planning on keeping it, is he?” Hermione had never actually met Hagrid, outside of their trip across the lake on that very first night.

“Yes!” the others chorused.

Lilian and Mary had visited Hagrid at the beginning of the year, and Mary had made small talk with him in the Great Hall over the winter holidays, but for the most part he had kept his distance since she revealed herself as a parselmouth. She wasn’t really sure why. If she’d given it any thought beforehand, she would have expected his reaction to be more like Aerin’s – slightly envious of her ability to talk to any kind of creature. In any case, there had never been a second invitation to tea. Aerin was the only one of the four girls who visited him regularly, but even Lilian had an idea from their single brief visit that he was very fond of dangerous creatures.

“Erm, this might be a stupid question,” Mary said, “but dragons do get… rather large, don’t they?”

Aerin sniggered a bit. “Yes, they do. We have mostly Welsh Greens around here, and a few Hebridean Blacks. The greens tend to top out at about 10 meters from nose to tail for the males, 12 meters for the females. Blacks are larger. Fifteen plus meters, easily.”

“That’s absurd,” Hermione objected.

“Their bones are hollow, like birds’,” Aerin explained, “And researchers think that as magical creatures, their innate magic allows them to overcome the ridiculousness of their aerodynamics, or rather, the lack thereof.”

“No, not that! Well, okay, yes, that too, but then, they have six limbs, so they’re obviously not evolved from any mundane animal, but that’s not the point I was trying to make.”

Aerin rolled her eyes. “Okay, what?”

“ _Where_ is he going to keep it? That cottage isn’t _that_ big…”

“Well, so far as I know, they grow fairly quickly. It will probably be about three to four meters long in a couple of months, and he’d have to move it into the forest,” Aerin speculated.

“Do dragons really breathe fire?” Mary asked.

“Yes,” said Lilian. “Yes, they do.” She was smirking slightly.

“And… correct me if I’m wrong, but Hagrid lives in a _wooden_ house?”

“Yes. Yes, he does.”

“This is going to be a complete and utter catastrophe,” Mary declared.

The other three nodded. “We should go down and have a look,” Lilian added. “I mean, how many times in our lives are we going to get to see a dragon egg?”

Hermione’s curiosity was piqued. “I suppose we could. It’s not as though we can go back to the library today,” she said, with a pointed look at Lilian.

“To Hagrid’s, then?” Mary looked around at her friends for confirmation.

“To Hagrid’s!” Aerin confirmed.

Shortly thereafter, the girls were knocking on the gamekeeper’s door. All the curtains were closed, and he called “Who is it?” before he let them in, clearly trying to maintain some level of secrecy. As soon as he saw Aerin, though, he knew why they were there.

“Come on, in, then, ye’s, an’ hurreh up abou’ it,” he said, closing the door quickly behind them. “Though’ I told yeh ter keep it quiet, Aerin,” he added, looking slightly disappointed.

“It’s only my friends, Hagrid,” she said in a placating tone. “You’ve met my sister and Mary, and this is Hermione. She’s in my house. They’re not going to tell anyone, right guys?” The first-years nodded. “And how often are they likely to get a chance to see a real dragon’s egg up close?”

With that reassurance, the giant man’s face shifted to show his clear excitement over his new acquisition. “Well an so,” he said with a grin. “Jes don’ tell anyone else, eh?”

“We won’t,” the girls said together, Hermione perhaps a bit more slowly than the others.

Mary looked around curiously. The cabin hadn’t changed a bit since her last visit, and it wasn’t hard to spot the egg. The fire was blazing in the grate, despite the warm spring day, and the egg, large and black, was nestled in the glowing coals.

The girls crowded around it, admiring the way the flames reflected off the shell and the way the color faded from cherry-red at the coals to deepest black at the top.

“Have you figured out what it is, yet?” Aerin asked.

Hagrid pulled a large book out from under his pillow. “Got this outta the library,” he said, flipping through it carefully. “See here – how ter recognize diff’rent eggs – what I got there’s a Norwegian Ridgeback. They’re rare, them.” He looked very pleased with himself.

“Where on earth did you get it?” Lilian asked, still mesmerized by the dancing flames. “It must’ve cost you a fortune.”

“I won it, t’other night. I was down in the village havin’ a few drinks, an’ got inter a game o’ cards with a stranger. Seemed right glad to be rid of it, ter be honest.”

Mary snorted, and Hermione said, “Well, of course he was! They’re illegal, aren’t they? And hard to take care of?”

“Ah, well, now, I dunno about tha’. Yer jes got ter keep the egg in the fire, ‘cause their mothers breathe on em, see, an’ when it hatches, feed it on a bucket o’ brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour.”

Mary didn’t miss how he conveniently ignored the issue of legality, and she suspected Hermione didn’t either, because she immediately pointed out, “Mr. Hagrid, you live in a _wooden house._ ”

“It’s jes’ Hagrid,” he replied cheerfully, stoking the fire. “No need ter bother with Mister, none.”

The rest of the visit proceeded in much the same way, with cheerful answers to any questions the girls could think of about dragons and their care, and selective deafness when it came to any pointed questions about the legality or infeasibility of raising an untamable creature on the school grounds.

They learned that baby dragons were called kits, and they started to breathe fire about a week after they hatched, though it wasn’t generally hot enough to do any damage for another week. They learned that dragons grew very quickly until they reached about half their adult size, and then continued to grow slowly until they were about ten years old and were ready to mate for the first time. They learned that dragons tended to live about fifty years in the wild, give or take a decade, liked shiny things almost as much as nifflers (whatever a niffler was), and were very territorial, which is why dragon reserves were so high-risk – the dragons never got along. And they learned, in Hermione’s words, that wizards clearly hadn’t a bit of common sense, though Mary and Lilian thought that might just be Hagrid.

Before they left, the man promised to send word when it was hatching. The hatching process was supposed to take nearly a full day, so (after Aerin pointed out to Hermione that she would probably never have another chance to see a dragon egg hatch) they all agreed to come and watch after their classes, whenever it happened.

The girls returned to their regularly scheduled program of classes and revising, trying not to think too hard about the fact that there would soon be an illegal dragon in the gamekeeper’s hut.

###  Wednesday, 27 May 1992

#### Hagrid’s Hut

Just over three weeks later, Aerin received a note at breakfast that consisted of only two words, written in Hagrid’s very untidy scrawl: _It’s today!_

Aerin told Hermione, who proceeded to look very anxious, and Lilian, who practically bounced through all her classes in anticipation. Lilian told Mary, who managed to hide her excitement a bit better. The fact that she seriously doubted Hagrid’s ability to control a dragon made it easier. After all, he couldn’t even control _Fang_ that well, and the dog had been trained.

After classes, the girls made their way down to Hagrid’s hut, separately, because they thought it would be less suspicious that way. Malfoy, who had been itching to get Mary and Lilian into trouble since the Intervention Incident, tried to follow them, but they spotted him and let him trail them to the library before catching him in a Full Body Bind and leaving him propped in a corner of the stacks. The next person to visit the Magical Theory section would surely un-freeze him, but in the meanwhile, they were able to escape.

Aerin and Hermione were already at the cabin when the Slytherins arrived. Hagrid greeted them, looking flushed and excited. “Yer jes’ in time!” he grinned, ushering them into the single large room.

The egg was lying on the table. There were deep cracks in it, and a funny clicking noise was coming from inside.

The five witnesses watched with bated breath.

All at once, not five minutes after Mary and Lilian entered the hut, there was a scraping noise, and the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped onto the table. It wasn’t exactly pretty. Mary thought it looked rather like a crumpled, black umbrella. Its spiny wings were huge compared to its skinny, jet body. It had a long snout with wide nostrils, the stubs of horns, and bulging, orange eyes. She thought it was about the size of Piers Polkiss’ iguana.

It sneezed. A couple of sparks flew out of its snout.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Hagrid murmured. He reached out a hand to stroke the dragon’s head. It snapped at his fingers, showing pointed fangs. “Bless him, look, he knows his mommy!”

“I, erm… don’t think so, Hagrid,” Aerin said.

“Can I touch it?” Lilian asked at the same time.

Hagrid looked a little dubious, but nodded, and turned his attention to mixing a bucket of blood and brandy for the (relatively) tiny creature.

The girl reached out a tentative hand, but couldn’t get close for the snapping teeth. It was quick, and the neck was long and flexible, like a snake.

After about five minutes of this, Hermione rolled her eyes. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said, and seized the dragon behind the head with one hand, pinning the body to the table with the other.

“Don’ hurt ‘im!” Hagrid objected as the dragon began to thrash its wings, hissing and keening.

“Aerin?”

The older girl calmly forced the wings closed, cupping her hands around the reptilian body and smirking at her younger housemate. “Ever the problem-solver Jeanie,” she said lightly.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Lili, if you would like to pet the dragon, now would be the time.”

Lilian grinned and began to stroke the dragon’s head and neck with a single finger. Mary joined her. The scales were surprisingly soft. The kit was still hissing and spitting the occasional spark, and Lilian asked if it was saying anything in Parsel.

It wasn’t, but Mary wasn’t sure if that was because it was too young, or scared, or if dragons were just too unlike snakes. She tried making soothing noises at it, which seemed to calm it a bit, at least until Hagrid finished draining the last chicken and brought the horrific mixture to the table. Then it got very excited, its tail lashing hard enough to leave a welt on one of Aerin’s arms.

The girls let it go, and it dunked its head right into the bucket, guzzling away. Ten minutes later, it was asleep in the fire, tail curled around its snout and wings neatly folded along its back, stomach distended like an overly-full puppy. It was, Mary admitted, kind of cute, now that it was no longer all crumpled and wet from the egg.

Just the same, none of them wanted to stick around for the next feeding, so they bid Hagrid a quick farewell and wandered back to the castle, all of them grinning widely for having witnessed an event they were sure they would never see again.

###  Wednesday, 3 June 1992

#### Hagrid’s Hut

The girls visited Hagrid often over the course of the next week, and it quickly became clear that it was simply not feasible for the gamekeeper to keep his new pet, which he called ‘Norbert,’ despite Aerin’s insistence that it was a _girl_ dragon. When they stopped in on Wednesday, she was easily three times as long as when she was born, and no longer fit in the fireplace. Instead, she lay half in – half out, smoke was furling ominously from her nostrils. There were empty brandy bottles and chicken feathers all over, and Hagrid looked like he hadn’t left the house in days. He probably hadn’t, given the dragon’s feeding schedule, and the fact that she was likely to tear up every bit of furniture he owned, or scatter the coals of the fire all over the hut and burn it down if left unattended.

Aerin took one look at the man and sent him to wash up. The four girls could handle babysitting for half an hour, she said, pushing him toward the door.

As soon as he was gone, ‘Norbert’ tensed, as though ready to try and pounce on one of the girls. Mary crouched down, just out of reach, hissing nonsense at the dragon. She didn’t think it understood her, but it seemed to find the reptilian noises comforting, and relaxed, squishing itself as far as possible into the coals and closing its eyes.

“This isn’t going to work,” Hermione said, quietly, so as not to disturb the (apparently) sleeping dragon. “We have to get him to give her up.”

“I know.” The Moon girls spoke simultaneously. Normally they would have giggled at their accidental synchronicity, but the situation was too dire for that.

“He never would,” Mary objected. “She could burn down the house and he’d still argue to keep her. He’s obsessed.”

The other girls nodded, and Aerin said, “It’s not healthy. We have to _try_ , at least.”

“Maybe we could argue that it’s in her best interests?” Lilian suggested. “I mean, she’s getting big. She can’t be happy being shut up in here all the time.”

“And the fire’s not nearly large enough for her,” Hermione added.

“Yeah, he might go for that,” Aerin agreed. “I can’t think of anything better, at least.”

“You should say it.” The other girls looked at Mary. “Aerin. You know him the best. He’d take it best from you.”

The older girl nodded grimly. When Hagrid returned, she started dropping hints that Norbert was really getting too large to stay cooped up indoors all the time, and suggested that it was time to start looking for a new home for her. Unfortunately, Hagrid was so offended by the notion that he kicked them out.

Aerin just sighed as they walked up to the Castle. “I’ll try again tomorrow,” she said. “He’ll have to see reason eventually.”

###  Monday, 8 June 1992

#### Hogwarts

But four days later, the giant gamekeeper still had not accepted their arguments. Aerin was bitten while helping feed the dragon (which had moved on from chicken blood, and was now roasting and eating dead rats by the case), and Hagrid yelled at her for startling it. According to Aerin, an angry Hagrid was even scarier than a hungry Norbert, going on about how this never would have happened if Charlie Weasley was there.

That comment gave the girls an idea. They cornered the Weasley twins in the library the next day after dinner, and dragged them off to an abandoned classroom.

“Not-Mary!”

“Hermione!”

“And our favorite Miss Moons!”

“What can we do for you?”

Mary had been elected the spokesperson for their group, by way of being the person who knew the twins best and who wasn’t also suffering from a dragonbite-induced fever. “We have a hypothetical question for you.”

The twins pulled out their wands and cast a series of privacy charms on the door before asking, “Hypothetical?” Matching eyebrows raised.

“Yes,” Mary said firmly. “If, hypothetically, we were to have a problem on our hands, would you be willing to help us get rid of it?”

“Well, Not-Mary, that depends, doesn’t it?” one of the boys asked.

“On what kind of ‘hypothetical’ problem it is,” the other finished, making air-quotes around ‘hypothetical.’

Mary took a deep breath. “Hypothetically, the problem might be a dragon.”

“A _dragon_?”

“A small one. Two weeks old. We need to get rid of it.”

“Where the bloody hell,”

“Did you get a _dragon_?”

“It’s not ours,” Hermione snapped. “It’s Hagrid’s. And he doesn’t want to give it up.”

“So why,”

“Ask us?”

“Hagrid mentioned your brother, Charlie,” Aerin explained, face flushed. “He’s a dragon keeper now, right?”

“Yeah, in _Romania_.”

“You all right, Aerie?”

“No, you prat, I got bit,” she said, showing the twins her hand. “I’ll probably have to go to Pomfrey eventually. I’m still trying to think of an excuse.” She was reluctant to see the healer unless she absolutely had to. She wasn’t sure if Madam Pomfrey would recognize a dragon bite, so despite the other girls’ arguments, and was planning on muddling through her classes and hoping the fever came down on its own.

One of the twins took one look at her hand and started writing something on a scrap of parchment. The other said, “Yeah, we’ll help. It will probably take a few days for an owl to get to Charlie and back. Pretty sure he’ll take the thing off your hands, it’s just a matter of details and timing. How long do you reckon Hagrid will hold out?”

“If you send the letter today, we’ll make sure he caves by the time you get a response. As for how long after that he can manage, well, if the damn thing burns down his house, it’s his own fault. I warned him a month ago that this would happen,” Hermione said. There was no pity in her voice. She was more than a little upset that this dragon fiasco was taking away from her revising time.

“I give him another two days, maybe three,” Lilian guessed, “before he’ll agree to give her up.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Mary agreed. “Four if I spend a lot of time down there, but I won’t.” The speaking twin gave her a questioning look. “The dragon doesn’t speak Parsel,” she explained, “but the sound calms it down and gives him a break.”

“Ah, okay, then.” That was what Mary loved about the twins. They just took absolutely everything in stride.

“I’ll start guilting him hard after Aerin caves and goes to the hospital wing,” Lilian added.

“Here.” The twin who had been writing handed his note to the oldest girl. “This is the best fever reducer you can make with the standard potions ingredients, and the back is a poultice that should draw out any infection. It won’t do anything for poison, but…”

“Thanks, love,” Aerin said tiredly. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Yeah, well, don’t die, Aerie.”

“We like you. Be a damn shame.”

Hermione snagged the slip of paper from her housemate’s hand. “I’ll make these tonight. You’re going to bed early.”

“So you guys will help?” Mary wanted to confirm and then get going.

“Course we will.”

“ _Sneaking an illegal dragon out of Hogwarts?”_

“What kind of pranksters would we be,”

“If we turned down an opportunity like that?”

“We’ll get the letter off tonight.”

“Should have a response by Friday.”

“Great. We’ll see you around, then.” And with a chorus of farewells, the six students parted, hurrying to their common rooms before curfew.

* * *

The twins’ potion did bring Aerin’s fever down, but Norbert must have been venomous, because the poultice did nothing for her hand, and it was starting to look a bit green, and was fully twice its normal size. She checked herself into the Hospital Wing Tuesday evening. None of them had been able to think of a good excuse, so she claimed (patently false) ignorance about what happened to her, and Madam Pomfrey stuck to her ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, which was the only thing that convinced students to come to her after bollixing up possibly illegal and assuredly dangerous magical experiments.

It only took one more day for Lilian to convince the guilt-wracked, sleep-deprived Hagrid that he needed to give up the dragon, for her sake and his own. He broke down crying and eventually agreed that if they could find Norbert a good home, he’d let the bloody beast go.

On Friday, as promised, the twins relayed their brother’s response: Charlie would send some friends to pick up the dragon, but they couldn’t be seen transporting it, so they needed to get it to the top of the tallest tower at midnight on Saturday. The dragon keeper’s note left no room for negotiation, but fortunately the twins already had a plan. They would meet down at Hagrid’s hut after curfew to sedate the dragon and put him in a crate, then throw a featherweight charm on it, as well as disillusionment and silencing charms, and anything else they could think of, on both the crate and the girls. The twins would create a distraction near the Hufflepuff dorms, well away from the path to the Astronomy tower, and the girls would carry the crate up and wait with it until Charlie’s friends arrived by broom. According to Charlie, the wards shouldn’t be a problem, since they had no malicious intent, all of them had been students, and they weren’t trying to apparate or portkey.

The girls were so relieved to be getting rid of the dragon that they agreed at once, and then headed down to Hagrid’s cabin, neglecting to make sure that they weren’t followed. Malfoy, who was trying harder than ever to catch them at something, since it was clear they were actively avoiding his tail, caught a glimpse of Norbert through a gap in Hagrid’s curtains.

Hagrid was terrified that Malfoy would run directly to Professor Snape, but Mary and Lilian assured him that the boy would probably wait and consult his father about the best course of action. All Hagrid had to do was follow the plan, and get rid of any evidence that Norbert had ever lived in his hut as soon as possible, and he would be fine. After all, it would be Malfoy’s word against theirs, and with no dragon as proof, his story would seem completely outrageous and ridiculous.

###  Saturday, 13 June 1992

#### Hogwarts

The next night, Mary, Lilian, and Hermione met Fred and George at Hagrid’s hut just after nine. They had actually all already been outside, so they wouldn’t have to bother with sneaking out, only in. It was the twins’ idea. Mary had the impression they did this sort of thing all the time. Hagrid had found a crate large enough for the growing dragon, though Mary had no idea where, and before he could object, Fred and George sent matching bolts of red light at the creature, stunning her. Hagrid laid her gently in the crate, folding her wings and wrapping her tail around her so that she looked like she was actually asleep, and packed some rats and a bucket of brandy in the corner, in case she woke up on the way.

He also tucked a teddy bear between her front claws, “In case he gets lonely.” (He still would not accept that Norbert was really a girl.) It really was a very cute picture, but one that would never happen if the dragon was conscious.

The twins rolled their eyes and sealed the crate, adding an Unbreakability Charm before disillusioning and silencing it. They disillusioned the girls next, and at Lilian’s suggestion used the Footfall-Silencing Charm instead of silencing them outright, so that they could still talk to each other or cast spells if needed. The Featherweight Charm was last, in the hopes that it would last all the way up to the top of the tower. Then they disappeared into the night, off to make their diversion. The girls gave them a ten-minute head-start before they set out following.

“Bye-bye, Norbert,” Hagrid sobbed, as Mary and Hermione picked up the crate and started back toward the castle. “Mommy will never forget you!”

Despite its lack of weight, the crate was still large and awkward to carry, and since it wasn’t actually invisible, but only camouflaged, the person behind had to blindly follow the lead of the person in front. They traded off every few minutes, with one person running ahead to scout whether the coast was clear. They were halfway down the corridor beneath the tallest tower when the stunning spells wore off. The balance of the crate suddenly shifted as the dragon woke, and there was a distinct smell of alcohol as the bucket of brandy was overturned.

They picked up the pace, liquor dripping from the corner of the crate, worried that the Featherweight Charm would end soon as well. They almost made it. Halfway up the last stair before the door to the open tower, the weight returned. The suddenness of it made Lilian drop the back end of the box, and there was a loud crash as it impacted the stairwell. It almost started to slide down, but fortunately the girl was able to catch it. The Unbreakability Charm seemed to be holding (the twins said that one was a bit more stable, and should last all night), and Mary quickly scrambled around to the lower side to help getting it out the door.

They hid the packing case and themselves in the deepest shadow on the observation platform, holding their breath against someone coming to investigate the noise, but apparently whatever havoc the twins had wrought was sufficient distraction, because no one did.

They sat quietly, waiting for midnight and the promised dragon-transporters to arrive. The Disillusionment and Silencing Charms wore off around eleven. The girls were able to replace the Silencing Charm, but not the Disillusionment. Mary and Lilian, who were wearing their usual sneaking-out clothes, threw their dark cloaks over it as further disguise, reasoning that if necessary, they could all hide their pale faces and arms behind Hermione’s cloak.

It wasn’t necessary. The tower remained entirely deserted until four broomsticks came swooping down out of the darkness. Charlie’s friends were a cheery lot. They showed the girls the harness they’d rigged up to suspend the crate between them. They all helped buckle Norbert safely into it, and then shook hands with the girls and rose up into the sky.

At last, Norbert was going… going… gone.

They slipped back down the stair, cloaks and shoes silenced (which was not quite as good as the Footfall-Silencing Charm, but nearly there). They made it safely to the fifth floor, where Hermione should have left them, only to find that the side corridor she needed to take to get back to her dorm had closed itself off. This was irritating, but not entirely unexpected, and she simply continued along with the Slytherins to the third floor, where there was a more reliable hidden staircase which led almost directly to Ravenclaw.

They were nearly at the point where they would need to part ways when they heard a commotion in the corridor ahead. They shrank back into the shadows as a torch flared.

Professor McGonagall, in a tartan bathrobe and a hairnet, had Draco Malfoy by the ear.

“Detention!” she shouted. “And twenty points from Slytherin! Wandering around in the middle of the night, trying to run –”

“You don’t understand, Professor. Potter and Moon, they never came back to the common room! I was simply worried –”

“A likely story! Caught in the act, more like!” Mary suppressed a giggle, and heard Lilian do the same. “Wanted to wait around and see the outcome of your little prank, I dare say!” Apparently Malfoy was going to be blamed for whatever Fred and George had done. An unanticipated bonus! Mary wondered what the prank was, that had kept Professor McGonagall out in her nightclothes for nearly three hours.

The Professor ignored Malfoy’s protestations of innocence, dragging him toward the dungeons. “Just wait until Professor Snape hears about this.”

The girls waited until they could no longer hear the Professor’s shouting, and quietly crept out of hiding. Apparently they weren’t quiet enough, however, as a dry voice cleared itself behind them.

“Miss Granger. Miss Potter. Miss Moon.” Professor Snape stepped out of a shadow they hadn’t even noticed. “You will accompany me to my office at once.” His tone left no room for argument.

Mary and Lilian sighed in concert as Hermione proceeded to get very nervous beside them. They would be given a detention for sure, but Mary thought it was worth it to have gotten rid of the damn dragon.


	16. Chapter 15: A Ringwraith with a Knife in the Forbidden Forest

###  Sunday 14 June 1992 (1:00 AM)

#### Professor Snape’s Office

Professor McGonagall was waiting in Professor Snape’s office with Malfoy when the four of them arrived.

“This couldn’t have waited until morning, Minerva?” Professor Snape said scathingly, eyeing the older woman’s nightclothes with obvious distaste.

Mary, Lilian, and Hermione hovered awkwardly near the door. Hermione in particular looked as though she very much wanted to run back to her tower as fast as she could. Mary didn’t blame her: Professors Snape and McGonagall were probably the strictest, scariest teachers in the castle, and neither one of them was very pleased at the moment. Draco was pouting in one of the visitors’ chairs, and refusing to look at any of them.

“Oh, what are you complaining about, Severus? We all know you weren’t asleep.”

“I also wasn’t on duty. What was so important that it necessitated breaking into my office at one in the morning?”

Professor McGonagall huffed. “You are aware, I hope, of the _disturbance_ on the third floor this evening?” Professor Snape nodded. “I discovered Mr. Malfoy, here, _suspiciously_ close to the scene of the crime, not half an hour ago! He tried to feed me some line about Miss Moon and Miss Potter and a dragon, if you would believe it.”

Professor Snape raised an eyebrow. “And rather than take away your customary ten points and send him to bed, you brought him to me because…?”

“Obviously he had something to do with it, Severus!”

“Minerva,” Professor Snape said in his best ‘you’re being thick’ tone, “do you have any proof that Mr. Malfoy was involved, aside from his suspicious proximity to your so-called ‘crime scene,’ three hours after ‘the disturbance,’ as you term it, began?”

Professor McGonagall, thus-far sustained by bluster and righteous fury, seemed to deflate. “Well, no…”

“Then I believe we must treat this simply as a student caught out of the dorms after curfew, in the wrong place at the wrong time, perhaps, but there is certainly no call to accuse him of any involvement with… _that_.”

Professor McGonagall huffed again. “Be that as it may,” she began, but Professor Snape cut her off.

“I will deal with it,” he said calmly. “You’ve had enough trouble already tonight. Go to bed, Minerva.”

His words seemed to placate Professor McGonagall, as she said, “Well, if you’re sure, Severus.” She was already edging toward the door.

“Indeed. He is a member of my house, after all.”

“Well then. Mr. Malfoy, your penalty is hereby adjusted to ten points from Slytherin, and your detention is rescinded. Mind you keep to your common room after curfew from now on! Severus,” she nodded her farewell with as much dignity as she could muster, given her attire, and excused herself from the office, ignoring the girls entirely.

“May I go, then, sir?” Draco asked, still not looking up from his knees.

“Oh, no, Mr. Malfoy,” Professor Snape said silkily, “I think not. And you three have a seat as well,” he added, conjuring two extra chairs. He himself did not sit, preferring, apparently, to loom behind them ominously, pacing back and forth.

Mary sat, watching his shadow flicker on the wall in front of them as he paced, growing more nervous the longer he waited to speak.

“Mr. Malfoy,” he began, after an appropriately suspenseful interval, “it is my understanding that you were apprehended out of bounds this evening, and when caught, attempted to blame your fellow Slytherins for your misbehavior. Regardless of your reason for being out of bounds in the first place, this is a clear violation of the first rule of Slytherin house, and as such, you will serve a detention, next weekend, at Mr. Filch’s discretion, in addition to the points taken by Professor McGonagall for getting caught.”

“But, Professor,” Malfoy attempted to object, but the professor talked over him.

“Miss Granger, Miss Potter, Miss Moon, would you care to me what you were doing out of bounds this evening?”

The three girls, familiar with this question after the night flying escapade, answered as one. “Nothing, sir.”

“It’s not nothing!” Draco shouted, clearly furious that he was being given a detention, probably, as he thought, on their account, “They’ve been sneaking off to Hagrid’s all the time!”

“Mr. Malfoy,” Professor Snape said in a warning tone, but Draco ignored him.

“Hagrid has a dragon!”

“No he doesn’t,” Lilian snapped.

Mary followed this up with, “Don’t be ridiculous, Malfoy.”

And Hermione, after a moment, added, “You do know he lives in a wooden house? I shouldn’t think it’s a very good place to hide a dragon.”

Professor Snape cleared his throat, coming around to stand behind the desk. “Miss Granger, I don’t recall Mr. Malfoy mentioning the location of the alleged dragon.”

“Erm, he said we were sneaking off to Hagrid’s, so I assumed, that is, um, I thought he meant Hagrid was keeping a dragon at his house. Sir.”

Professor Snape smirked. “You are a terrible liar, Miss Granger. So Hagrid has a dragon? I suppose that explains the presence of the elder Miss Moon in the hospital wing.” The professor finally took his seat.

“No, he doesn’t,” Lilian repeated.

“Elaborate, Miss Moon.”

“Ah, that is… um…”

“Oh, give it up, Lils. He knows we were out of bounds. He caught us, remember?” Mary rolled her eyes at her friend. She turned back to Professor Snape. “If there was a dragon, and I’m not saying there was, you understand,” Professor Snape nodded, the slightest hint of amusement in his dark gaze, “then _hypothetically_ , the three of us might have been capable of moving said dragon to the top of the highest tower and, again, I’m not saying we did, but we could have handed it off to a bunch of dragon keepers on brooms to take it to a reserve. Theoretically. Sir.”

Professor Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, a sure sign that he simply wanted the problem in front of him to vanish. “For future note, Miss Potter, the proper procedure when one is aware of a ‘hypothetical’ class five _highly dangerous_ magical creature on Hogwarts’ grounds, is to _report it to a professor_ , not _sneak it off the top of the astronomy tower_!” He glowered at the girls for a long moment. “I will be speaking to the Headmaster about this.”

The girls panicked, and all tried to speak at once. “There’s no proof!” “We didn’t admit anything!” “No, sir, please!” Draco chimed in with, “I saw it!” and all three of the girls glared at him. Lilian’s hand actually twitched for her wand.

“Mr. Malfoy,” the professor snapped, “Is one detention perhaps not sufficient time to consider the First Rule?”

The blond boy shrank into his seat. “No sir, one detention is plenty, sir.”

Professor Snape sighed and checked the time. It was nearly two. “Miss Potter, Miss Moon, Miss Granger, I suspect that it is patently impossible for the three of you to have successfully subdued and transported a dragon through the castle, and as such, you will not be directly punished for the ludicrous ‘hypothetical’ situation Miss Potter has outlined. I will be discussing Mr. Malfoy’s story with the Headmaster, and appropriate actions will be taken to determine the veracity thereof. Each of you will serve a detention next weekend at the discretion of Mr. Filch as a penalty for being caught out of bounds. Any questions?”

Both Malfoy and Hermione looked like they wanted to object, but Professor Snape’s glare silenced the boy, and Lilian clapped a hand over Hermione’s mouth before she could say anything. “No, sir,” rang out in unison from the remaining offenders.

Professor Snape nodded. “Dismissed.”

Malfoy, despite being furthest from the door, managed to reach it first, wrenching it open and stalking off into the darkened dungeons. Lilian marched the still-silenced Hermione from the room, and Mary slipped out last, with a quick and heartfelt, “Thank you, professor.”

She thought she heard him mumble something about _kids today_ as she shut the door.

Lilian removed her hand from Hermione’s face, and the Ravenclaw immediately began to speak. “I was only going to say that next week is exams! I’d rather he took fifty points from Ravenclaw than have to do detention when it’s our last chance to revise!”

“Hermione,” Lilian said calmly, “Shut. _Up_. We got off so easy…”

“Yeah, Maia, I’m with Lils on this one. Let it go. We were given an out, and we are one hundred percent going to take it.” Mary’s voice was firm.

“We could have been _expelled_ , and you’re worried about _one_ evening of revising.”

Hermione went pale at that. “Do you really think so?”

Both Slytherins nodded. “Just don’t draw attention to us and let Professor Snape keep us out of it, and no one ever needs to know, right?” Mary was absolutely _willing_ her first friend to follow their lead on this.

“Um… okay,” she said after a moment. “Yes. I guess I can do that. I mean, I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“Right. So head back to Ravenclaw before Professor Snape comes out and gives us a _second_ detention,” Lilian said, pushing the bushy-haired girl toward the nearest stairs.

They bid each other good night, and all managed to reach their rooms without further incident.

###  Saturday, 20 June 1992

#### Forbidden Forest

The last week before exams passed in a blur. Draco was not speaking to the girls, though that was not really a great loss, in anyone’s opinion. Lessons were done, and class time was devoted to revision, along with nearly every hour of free time. Hermione’s previous fervor for revision was nothing in comparison to her approach now that she knew one of her weekend evenings would be lost to detention.

By the time matching detention notices arrived for Mary, Lilian, and Draco at breakfast on Saturday, Mary was almost looking forward to it as an excuse to have a break from studying. Hermione got one too, though she was not as pleased. The girls did think it was rather odd that the detention was set so late, but Lilian suggested that it was because they had been caught out so late – let the punishment fit the crime, or something similar.

They put it out of their minds and headed up to the library to re-read the first few chapters of their Herbology text.

* * *

Fourteen hours later, the three girls, along with Malfoy, met Filch in the Entrance Hall. He led them out onto the grounds, babbling about corporal punishment. Mary tuned him out, fully occupied with wondering what their punishment would be. The older students had told them it was usually lines, or cleaning something in the castle, when Filch was in charge. She couldn’t think of any reason for them to be outside.

A familiar voice called out from the darkness. “Is that you, Filch? Hurry up, I want ter get started.”

One of the girls must have looked relieved on hearing Hagrid’s voice, because Filch said, “I suppose you think you’ll be enjoying yourself with that oaf? Well, think again, girl. It’s into the forest you’re going, and I’m much mistaken if you’ll all come out in one piece.”

At this, Hermione, who knew all too well from Aerin’s stories the kinds of creatures that lived in the Forest, whimpered, and Malfoy stopped dead in his tracks. Even Mary and Lilian, who had done plenty of exploring in the Forest hesitated. That had been in daylight.

“The Forest?” the boy repeated, his usual tone of inbred superiority somewhat lacking. “We can’t go in there at night – there’s all sorts of things in there – werewolves, I heard.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Hermione snapped, “It’s not full moon. But there are Remoran wolves, and I heard there were triffids…”

“That’s your problem, isn’t it?” Filch’s voice was cracking with glee. “Should’ve thought of them wolves before you got in trouble, shouldn’t you?”

Hagrid came striding toward them out of the dark, Fang at his heel. He was carrying his large crossbow, and a quiver of arrows hung over his shoulder. “Abou’ time,” he said. “I bin waitin’ fer half an hour already. All right, girls?”

“I shouldn’t be too friendly to them, Hagrid,” said Filch coldly. “They’re here to be punished, after all.”

“That’s why yer late, is it?” the big man asked, frowning at Filch. “Bin lecturin’ them, eh? ‘snot your place ter do that. Yeh’ve done yer bit, I’ll take over from here.”

“I’ll be back at dawn,” said Filch, “for what’s left of them,” he added nastily, and he turned and started back toward the castle, his lamp bobbing away in the darkness.

Malfoy turned to Hagrid and said, “I’m not going in that forest,” in a rather panicked tone, just as Hermione, in a similar voice, said, “This isn’t really going to take all night, is it?” She was doubtless afraid to interrupt her sleep schedule so close to exams.

“It’ll take as long as it takes,” Hagrid answered Hermione before turning to Malfoy. “An’ yeh are goin’ inter the forest if yeh want ter stay at Hogwarts. Yeh’ve done wrong, an’ now yeh’ve got ter pay fer it.”

“But this is servant stuff,” the pale boy argued, “it’s not for students to do. I thought we’d be copying lines or something. If my father knew I was doing this, he’d –”

“Tell yer that’s how it is at Hogwarts,” Hagrid growled. “Copyin’ lines! What good’s that ter anyone? Yeh’ll do summat useful, or yeh’ll get out. If ye think yer father’d rather you were expelled, then get back off ter the castle an’ pack. Go on.”

Malfoy didn’t move. He looked at Hagrid furiously, but then dropped his gaze.

“Right, then. Now, listen carefully, ‘cause it’s dangerous what we’re gonna do tonight, an’ I don’ want no one takin’ risks. Follow me over here a moment.”

He led them to the very edge of the forest. Holding his lamp up high, he pointed down a narrow, winding earth track that disappeared into the thick black trees. A light breeze lifted their hair as they looked into the forest.

“Look there,” said Hagrid, “see that stuff shinin’ on the ground? Silvery stuff? That’s unicorn blood. There’s a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat. This is the second time in a week. I found one dead last Wednesday. We’re gonna try an’ find the poor thing. We might have ter put it out of its misery.”

“And what if whatever hurt the unicorn finds us first?” Malfoy asked, fear in his voice. It was a very good question, Mary thought.

“There’s nothin’ that lives in the forest that’ll hurt yeh if yer with me or Fang,” said Hagrid.

“There’s nothing in the forest normally that could or would hurt a unicorn,” Lilian argued, but Hagrid ignored her, much like he’d ignored the girls’ protests against hatching Norbert in his house.

“So stay with me or Fang an’ keep ter the path. Right, now, we’re gonna split inter two parties an’ follow the trail in diff’rent directions. There’s blood all over the place, it must’ve bin staggerin’ around since last night at least.”

“I want Fang!” Malfoy said quickly.

“All right, but I warn yeh, he’s a coward,” said Hagrid. “Lilian, you go with them, Fang likes yeh, an’ Mary and ‘ermione, yeh’ll come with me. Now, if any of us finds the unicorn, we’ll send up green sparks, right? Get yer wands out an’ practice now – that’s it – an’ if anyone gets in trouble, send up red sparks, an’ we’ll all come an’ find yeh – so, be careful – let’s go.”

The forest was black and silent. A little way into it, they reached a fork in the earth path, and Mary, Hermione, and Hagrid took the left path, while Malfoy, Lilian, and Fang took the right.

They walked in silence, their eyes on the ground. Every now and then, a ray of moonlight through the branches above lit a spot of silver-blue blood on the fallen leaves.

Mary wondered if Lilian had been right about nothing that lived here normally being able to kill unicorns. “Do you have any idea what’s doing it?” she asked Hagrid.

“Nah,” he said, sounding worried. “It’s not easy ter catch a unicorn. They’re powerful magic creatures. I never knew one ter be hurt before.”

They walked past a mossy stump. Mary could hear running water. There must be a stream close by. There were still spots of unicorn blood here and there along the winding path.

“You all right, ‘ermione?” Hagrid whispered. “Don’ worry, it can’t’ve gone far if it’s this badly hurt, an’ then we’ll be able ter – GET BEHIND THAT TREE!”

The man seized the girls and hoisted them off the path, behind a towering oak. He pulled out an arrow and fitted it into his crossbow, raising it, ready to fire. The three of them listened. Something was slithering over dead leaves nearby. It sounded like a cloak trailing on the ground. Hagrid was squinting up the dark path, but after a few seconds, the sound faded away.

“I knew it,” he murmured. “There’s summat in here that shouldn’ be.”

“A triffid?” Hermione suggested. Mary still had no idea what a triffid was, and she didn’t want to know until she was safely back in the Castle.

“That wasn’ no triffid, an’ it wasn’ no unicorn, neither,” said Hagrid grimly. “Right, follow me, but careful now.”

They walked more slowly, ears straining for the faintest sound. Suddenly, in a clearing ahead, something definitely moved.

“Who’s there?” Hagrid called. “Show yerself – I’m armed!”

A centaur with red hair and a gleaming chestnut body walked into the clearing. Mary and Hermione’s jaws dropped.

“Oh, it’s you, Ronan,” said Hagrid in relief. “How are yeh?” He walked forward and shook the centaur’s hand.

“Good evening to you, Hagrid,” said Ronan. He had a deep, sorrowful voice. “Were you going to shoot me?”

“Can’t be too careful, Ronan,” said Hagrid, patting his crossbow. “There’s summat bad loose in this forest. This is Mary Potter an’ Hermione Granger, by the way. Students up at the school. An’ this is Ronan, you two. He’s a centaur.”

“We’d noticed,” Hermione said faintly.

“Good evening,” said Ronan. “Students, are you? And do you learn much, up at the school?”

Hermione appeared to be a bit flummoxed by the presence of the centaur, still (or perhaps by the absence of any sort of clothing on said centaur). Mary said the first thing that came into her head. “There’s always something to learn.”

The centaur gave her an evaluating look. “Indeed.” He sighed, and flung back his head to stare at the sky. “Mars is bright tonight.”

“Yeah,” said Hagrid, glancing up, too. “Listen, I’m glad we’ve run inter yeh, Ronan, cause there’s a unicorn bin hurt – you seen anythin’?”

Ronan didn’t answer immediately. He stared unblinkingly upward, then sighed again. “Always the innocent are the first victims. So it has been for ages, so it is now.”

“Yeah,” said Hagrid, “but have yeh seen anythin’ Ronan? Anythin’ unusual?”

“Mars is bright tonight,” the centaur repeated. “Unusually bright.”

“Yeah, but I was meanin’ –”

Hermione interrupted suddenly, snapping her fingers “Always the innocent, first to fall, ever past, even now. Witches weep as children die, when sound the bells of war!”

“What?” Mary and Hagrid turned to the Ravenclaw as one.

“Oh, Mary,” Hermione said, exasperation in her voice, “It’s a poem, from your mum’s book, remember you let me read it after Christmas? It’s called the Folly of Man.

“Always the innocent, first to fall, ever past, even now.  
Witches weep as children die, when sound the bells of war.  
Wizards wanting sweet revenge, Darkness’ rise, black the skies.  
Fate and fancy roll the dice, when sound the bells of war.  
Cycle ends, begin again, wax and wane, wisdom’s bane,  
All men falter in the end, and sound the bells of war.

“It’s about how the suffering of war is an eternal part of the human condition,” she explained. “No matter how much we might try to avoid it, something always sets off the next one.”

Ronan looked at her shrewdly, and added, “And Mars is bright tonight.”

This must have made sense to Hermione, because she nodded to the centaur, and whispered to Mary, “I’ll tell you and Lili later.”

Hagrid, who had been looking back and forth between the girl and the centaur, interrupted to ask, “Abou’ that unicorn?”

Before Ronan could answer, there was a movement in the trees behind him that made Hagrid raise his bow again. A second centaur emerged from the trees, black-haired and –bodied, and wilder-looking than Ronan.

“Hullo, Bane,” said Hagrid. “All right?”

“Good evening, Hagrid, I hope you are well?”

“Well enough. Look, I’ve jus bin askin’ Ronan, you seen anythin’ odd in here lately? There’s a unicorn bin injured – would yeh know anythin’ about it?”

Bane looked to the sky, and noted, “Mars is bright tonight.”

“We’ve heard,” Hagrid grumped. “Well, if either of you do see anythin’, let me know, won’t yeh? We’ll be off, then.”

Mary and Hermione followed him out of the clearing, staring over their shoulders at Ronan and Bane until the trees blocked their view.

“Never,” Hagrid said irritably, “try an’ get a straight answer out of a centaur. Ruddy stargazers. Not interested in anythin’ closer’n the moon.”

“Are there many of them in here?” Hermione asked.

“Oh, a fair few… Keep themselves to themselves, mostly, but they’re good enough about turnin’ up if ever I want a word. They’re deep, mind, centaurs… they know things… jus’ don’ let on much.”

They walked on through the dense, dark trees in silence. Mary kept looking over her shoulder. She had the nasty feeling they were being watched. She was very glad they had Hagrid and his crossbow with them. They had just passed a bend in the path when Hermione grabbed Hagrid’s arm.

“Hagrid! Look! Red sparks! The others are in trouble!”

“You two wait here!” Hagrid shouted. “Stay on the path, I’ll come back for yeh!”

They heard him crashing away through the undergrowth and stood looking at each other, very scared, until they couldn’t hear anything but the rustling of leaves around them.

“You don’t think they’ve been hurt, do you?” whispered Hermione.

“I hope not.”

The minutes dragged by. Their ears seemed sharper than usual. Mary’s seemed to be picking up every sigh of the wind, every crackling twig. What was going on? Where were the others?

At last, a great crunching noise announced Hagrid’s return. Malfoy, Lilian, and Fang were with him. Hagrid was fuming. It seemed Malfoy and Lilian had tried to skive off, and gotten cornered by a herd of something invisible called thestrals. Draco had panicked, getting pushed around by invisible creatures, and sent up the red sparks.

“We’ll be lucky ter catch anythin’ now, with the racket you two were makin’. Right, we’re changin’ groups. Malfoy, you stay with me an’ ‘ermione. Mary, you go with Fang and Lilian.”

So Mary set off into the heart of the forest with Lilian and Fang. They walked for nearly half an hour, Mary relating the story of their encounter with the centaurs and Hermione’s poem. They walked deeper and deeper into the forest, until the path became almost impossible to follow because the trees were so thick. Mary thought the blood seemed to be getting thicker, too. There were splashes on the roots of a tree, as though the poor creature had been thrashing around in pain close by. Mary could see a clearing ahead, through the tangled branches of an ancient oak.

“Look…” Something bright white was gleaming on the ground. They inched closer, and Lilian shot off green sparks as they recognized it.

Mary had never seen something so beautiful and sad. Its long, slender legs were stuck out at odd angles where it had fallen, and its mane was spread pearly-white on the dark leaves.

She had taken one step toward it when a slithering sound made her freeze where she stood. A bush on the edge of the clearing quivered… Then, out of the shadows, a hooded figure came crawling across the ground like some stalking beast. The girls and the dog stood, transfixed. Lilian’s wand was still pointed at the sky, and red sparks began to join the green ones already dancing above them. The cloaked figure reached the unicorn, a knife gleaming in its hand. It drove the blade into the animal’s side, widening the wound, and began to lap at its blood.

Fang whimpered, sensing the fear rolling off the girls, and bolted. The hooded figure raised its head and looked right at Mary, unicorn blood dribbling down its front. A dark shadow with glowing red eyes separated itself from the figure, floating toward the girls. They were still frozen in fear, holding hands tightly.

Then a pain like nothing Mary had ever felt before pierced her head. It was as though her scar was on fire, ten times worse than it ever was in Quirrell’s class. Half blinded, she staggered backward, falling, and pulling Lilian down with her. She heard hooves, and then something, a very large, _male_ something, jumped clean over them, charging the figure.

Mary closed her eyes, waiting for the pain to pass. It took a minute, and when she looked up, the figure had gone. A centaur was standing over her, younger than Ronan or Bane, with Malfoy hair and a palomino body.

“Are you all right?” he asked, pulling the girls to their feet.

“Yes – thank you – what was that?”

The centaur didn’t answer, even when Lilian repeated Mary’s question. He had astonishingly blue eyes, like pale sapphires. He looked carefully at Mary, his eyes lingering on the scar that stood out, livid, on her forehead.

“You are the Potter girl,” he said.

“Yes, and this is Lilian Moon,” Mary said, pointing at her friend.

“My name is Firenze. We must get you back to Hagrid,” the centaur said. “The forest is not safe at this time – especially not for you. Can you ride? It will be quicker this way.” He knelt down without waiting for an answer, and motioned for the girls to climb onto his back. In point of fact, Mary had no idea whether she could ride or not, but to get out of the bleeding forest, she would bloody well learn.

There was suddenly a sound of more galloping from the other side of the clearing. Ronan and Bane came bursting through the trees, their flanks heaving and sweaty.

“Firenze!” Bane thundered. “What are you doing? You have humans on your back! Have you no shame? Are you a common mule?”

“Do you realize who this is?” Firenze asked. “This is the Potter girl. The quicker she leaves this forest, the better.”

“What have you been telling them?” growled Bane. “Remember, Firenze, we are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens. Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?”

Ronan pawed the ground nervously. “I’m sure Firenze thought he was acting for the best,” he said in his gloomy voice.

Bane kicked his back legs in anger. “For the best! What is that to do with us? Centaurs are concerned with what has been foretold! It is not our business to run around like donkeys after stray humans in our forest!”

Firenze suddenly reared onto his hind legs in anger, so that Mary had to grab his shoulders to stay on.

“Do you not see that unicorn?” Firenze bellowed at Bane. “Do you not understand why it was killed? Or have the planets not let you in on that secret? I set myself against what is lurking in this forest, Bane, yes, with humans alongside me if I must.”

 And Firenze whisked around, with Mary clutching on as best she could, Lilian (who apparently _could_ ride) holding loosely to her waist. They plunged off into the trees, leaving Ronan and Bane behind them.

Mary didn’t have a clue what was going on. “Why’s Bane so angry?” she asked. “What was that thing you saved us from?”

Firenze slowed to a walk, warning the girls to look out for low-hanging branches, but did not answer. Lilian murmured in her ear that centaurs and humans had millennia of bad blood between them, and it was considered demeaning for a centaur to allow itself to be ridden like a mere beast of burden, but she could not answer the question of what had attacked them.

The centaur stopped, suddenly, several minutes after Lilian fell silent again, twisting to look at the girls.

“Do you know what unicorn blood is used for?” he asked.

“No,” Mary said, “We’ve only used the horn and tail hair in Potions.”

But Lilian whispered, “Yes,” at the same time, her face ashen. “Life for life.”

“Indeed,” the centaur said, turning away again. “It is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn. Only one who has nothing to lose and everything to gain would commit such a crime. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenseless to save yourself, and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips.”

Mary stared at the back of Firenze’s head, dappled silver in the moonlight. “But who’d be that desperate? If you’re going to be cursed forever, death’s better, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Firenze agreed, “unless all you need is to stay alive long enough to drink something else – something that will bring you back to full strength and power – something that will mean you can never die. Miss Potter, do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment?”

“Oh! Of course! But… who? Quirrell?”

“Can you think of nobody who has waited many years to return to power, who has clung to life, awaiting their chance?”

Mary seemed to hear once more Professor McGonagall, so long ago, telling her about the fall of the Dark Lord and Dumbledore’s fear that he would one day return. Lilian was apparently on the same page, because she whispered, “The Dark Lord…”

And then there was a crashing behind them on the path, and Hermione was shouting, “Lizzie, Lili, are you all right?”

Hagrid was puffing along behind her, with Malfoy trailing by a fair distance.

“We’re fine,” Mary said. “The unicorn’s dead, Hagrid, in a clearing back there.”

“This is where I leave you,” Firenze murmured, as Hagrid hurried off to examine the unicorn. “You are safe now.”

The girls slid off his back, and Hermione pulled them into a fierce hug

“Good luck, Mary Potter,” said Firenze. “The planets have been read wrongly before now, even by centaurs. I hope this is one of those times.”

He turned and cantered back into the depths of the forest, leaving Mary shivering behind him.

On the long walk back to the castle, two things were established for certain:

One – Quirrell was somehow working for or possessed by the Dark Lord, who looked like something out of Tolkien's nightmares, and they were trying to steal the stone to bring the Dark Lord back to life. War was returning to Wizarding Britain, or so the centaurs thought.

And two – Between the Dragon Fiasco and this detention in the forest, constantly running off and leaving first one group of students, then the other, unprotected, Hagrid was clearly too stupid to trust. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made up the poem that Hermione quotes in this chapter.


	17. Chapter 16: Common Sense and a Wizardly Lack Thereof

###  Sunday, 21 June 1992

#### Minerva McGonagall’s Office

##### Minerva

Every year, as long as she had been teaching at Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall held Special Office Hours on the day before exams. Special Office Hours began whenever she arrived at her office after breakfast and ended at curfew, with breaks for lunch and dinner. In the case of certain prefects, she had, on occasion, even been trapped _after_ curfew. Transfiguration was, after all, a difficult subject, and her exams were notoriously rough.

On the Sunday before exams, she fully expected to encounter panicking OWL students, crying NEWT students, supremely overconfident NEWT students asking if she would consider taking an apprentice, sixth-years who hadn’t yet begun to study, and second-years who were only just beginning to recall how difficult the previous year’s exams had been. She expected Gryffindors appearing for last minute tutoring recommendations in all subjects, and she was not entirely unfamiliar with Slytherins trying secure a better grade through the time-honored tradition of bribing the professor.

Occasionally, though not often, students would come to ask a question about transfiguration, and end up breaking down over their relationships or their parents or their career and elective class choices. Stress could do strange things to a child, and every year, without fail, Minerva had to send at least one student to Poppy for a calming draught and a few hours away from their books.

Minerva’s office saw more visitors on the day before exams than it did on all the other days of the year combined, both in absolute numbers and in different individuals, she was sure. Questions were answered first-come, first-served, and the line for her attention often stretched down the corridor. On Special Office Hours Day, even Albus had to wait in line if he wanted to speak to his deputy.

In all her thirty-five years’ experience holding Special Office Hours, she was utterly certain that she had never been faced with anything quite as strange and frankly unpleasant as this, and that included the time Sirius Black half-transformed Peter Pettigrew into a rat, and then begged her to teach him the Homorphous Charm to reverse it.

Three first-year students, one of them her ward, were seated in front of her. Mary looked decidedly worried, while the others were merely slightly concerned. She listened carefully to their story, and then insisted they tell it a second time, so that she could take notes.

It wasn’t that she had never had a student figure out Albus’ little challenges before, or seek out secrets hidden in the Castle that no child was meant to find. It wasn’t that she had never had a student complain about a detention (though really, taking first years to look for something that could injure a _unicorn_? What was Hagrid thinking?), or even ask her about cryptic things they had been told by centaurs (or House Elves, or merfolk). It wasn’t even the first time she had had a student come to her and tell her that they suspected the Defense Professor was trying to kill them (or stalk them, or any other manner of disturbing activity). It was, however, the first time that anyone had informed her that a supposedly-destroyed Dark Lord was making a bid for power in her very school, possessing the Defense Professor in order to attempt to steal a rare and valuable magical artifact (which shouldn’t be in the school in the first place), which he believed to be at the end of Albus’ stupid little obstacle course. She was finding it most unpleasant.

“So let me get this straight,” she said, looking over her notes. “You all were in the forest last night on a detention, when you found a hooded figure drinking unicorn’s blood. A shadow that looked, according to Miss Moon, like ‘a ringwraith out of Tolkien but scarier,’ detached itself from the hooded person, and attacked you. You were rescued by centaurs, who told you repeatedly that Mars was bright that night; referenced Montreve’s Folly of Man; and told you that the figure was drinking unicorn blood to survive until it could obtain the Elixir of Life. The centaur further implied that the figure was You Know Who, who has been waiting to return to power for the past ten years, and that war was returning to our world.

“You are completely certain that the figure was Professor Quirrell, because Miss Potter’s scar ‘hurt like blazes’ when the ‘ringwraith’ attacked, and the only other time it ever hurts is when Professor Quirrell makes eye-contact with Miss Potter. You are, furthermore, certain that Professor Quirrell is attempting to steal the Philosopher’s Stone because you spied on him and Professor Snape having a secret meeting in the Forest after the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff Quidditch match, and that he’s focusing on ‘the stupidly easy obstacle course in the second-dungeon level’ because he has, apparently, been trying to find a way past the cerberus on the third floor all year.

“You believe this despite the fact that it would be a blatantly stupid idea to hide the Philosopher’s Stone at the end of a challenge designed to be passable to first years because, to quote Miss Granger, ‘Most wizards have not got a drop of common sense, and he has clearly been going dotty all year, anyway, so who knows what he is thinking.’”

The girls were all nodding, and Miss Granger added a firm, “Yes, Professor.”

It was all Minerva could do to stop herself rolling her eyes. She wasn’t sure if the least believable part of all this was the allegation of You Know Who returning as a possessed DADA Professor, the fact that the girls had apparently been spying on Severus, or the idea that Quirrell, even in his (admittedly unhealthy) state could possibly believe that the Stone was in the obstacle course. No, wait, it was the idea that Quirrell was physically capable of killing a unicorn. Yes, that was definitely the least believable part.

She heaved a sigh. “I’ll look into it,” she said, “And take all appropriate measures.” She would talk to Quirrell over lunch, and see if there was anything extra suspicious about his behavior before talking to Albus about the girls’ accusations, and regardless of whether the accusations proved true, she couldn’t help but foresee a long talk with her ward regarding her adventures over the course of the year…

###  Sunday, 21 June 1992

#### The Great Hall

“It looks like she’s going over to talk to Quirrell,” Lilian whispered to Mary. She looked up from her sandwich at once.

The two girls had been taking turns keeping an eye on Professor McGonagall all through lunch, in the hopes that the older witch would use part of her break from her all-day office hours to speak to the Headmaster about Quirrell/Voldemort trying to steal the Philosopher’s Stone. So far she had not, and it appeared that she was going to just confront Quirrell directly.

Mary watched carefully as the Deputy Head talked to the DADA Professor. Her face looked concerned, perhaps even kindly, but her body language was threatening. Quirrell cowered, his face the grey that had become its usual color over the past few months. He said something, and his hands fluttered briefly like dying moths, as though he wanted to talk with them, but simply hadn’t the energy. Professor McGonagall’s posture relaxed. Whatever he had said, it reassured her.

“Nooo,” Mary hissed under her breath.

“I told you we should have gone to Professor Snape,” Lilian said.

“You said Snape already knows,” came Hermione’s voice from behind them.

“ _Professor_ Snape,” the Slytherins corrected as she took a seat at their table.

“McGonagall was our best bet for getting rid of him, and she just went and reassured herself that he’s nothing to worry about.”

“Bloody useless, this whole morning, then,” Lilian grumped. They had gotten up early, despite their late night, and waited in line outside Professor McGonagall’s office for nearly two hours after breakfast.

Hermione was shaking her head sadly. “Not a bit of bloody common sense among the lot of them.”

“What are we going to do, guys?” Mary asked. Neither of her friends seemed to be taking the threat of the Dark Lord’s imminent return as seriously as she was. It was slightly infuriating, or would have been if she’d had any emotion left over after actively worrying and generally being anxious all day. She had hardly slept, because, completely aside from the fact that they’d gotten back to their rooms well after two in the morning with too much adrenaline in their systems, every time she closed her eyes, she had visions of blood-covered, red-eyed men in purple turbans, coming to kill her in a flash of green light.

Lilian bit her lip. “I don’t know if there’s anything we _can_ do. I mean, McGonagall’s your guardian. If she doesn’t trust us, I doubt the Headmaster would. I mean, he’s barmy, but not that barmy.”

“Well, I’ll keep thinking about it,” Hermione said, “But in the meanwhile, we should go back to the library and look over Charms again.”

Mary sighed. “I need more work on potions.”

“You don’t have potions until Thursday,” Hermione pointed out.

“The essay part is the same as yours,” Lilian corrected her, “Tomorrow morning, and then our Charms practical is before yours that afternoon.”

“Oh, all right, then. Potions, then Charms.”

And with that, the trio trooped off to the library, the Quirrell Problem still unresolved.

###  Thursday, 25 June 1992

#### Hogwarts

##### Lilian

The week of exams passed far more quickly than any of the first-years expected. It was swelteringly hot, especially in the large classrooms where they did all their written exams, with all of the first-years together. The students were given AntiCheating Quills for the essays, which Mary and Hermione both complained about at length, much to Lilian’s amusement. Mary was just out of sorts because she still wasn’t sleeping well, and Hermione was genuinely concerned that she wouldn’t be able to write everything she wanted to within the time limits using the unfamiliar quill instead of her trusty fountain pen.

There were written exams for Astronomy, Charms, DADA, Transfiguration, Potions, Herbology, and History, and practicals for Charms, Transfiguration, and Potions. There ought to have been a practical for DADA, but due to Quirrell’s failing health, he hadn’t actually taught them any magic over the course of the term, and he informed them on Thursday morning during their combined written exam that they were all exempted from even showing up to their practical sessions, which were supposed to be held Friday morning. Unsurprisingly, the only person Lilian knew who had a problem with this was Hermione.

After Quirrell’s written exam, the Slytherins had lunch and two hours off before they and the Gryffindors reported to the dungeons for Professor Snape’s practical. He had them make a Forgetfulness Potion from memory, which was not the hardest thing they’d done all year, but not the easiest, either (and the fact that it was a _forgetfulness_ potion seemed to psych out some of the Gryffindors, who were unable to remember all of the necessary steps).

Lilian and Mary shared a table, as they normally did, but for the exam, each of them had to make their own potion. Lilian noticed about halfway through the two-hour exam that her friend was starting to look a bit pale, but it wasn’t until she fainted on her way out of the classroom that Lilian realized something was actually _wrong._

“Professor,” she shrieked, running back in to the Potions lab. “Liz just fainted, I don’t know what’s wrong with her!”

The professor fetched Mary back into the lab and laid her out on a table, performing a quick series of diagnostic spells as Lilian babbled.

“I don’t know what happened, I’ve been with her all day, but I think she might be cursed. She was looking a bit peaky around the halfway point, and Quirrell’s been trying to kill her all year, we’re almost sure, and we had him this morning and –”

“Quiet, Miss Moon,” Professor Snape said, though not unkindly.

He mumbled for several minutes under his breath, drawing a complex diagram over Mary’s heart with the tip of his wand. A ball of black and red fire slowly accumulated there, a mist rising up from her chest, her robes apparently not a barrier to the movement of the magic, and then he said, loudly and clearly, “ _Abolefascio!_ ”

The ball of evil-looking light disintegrated.

“What was that, sir?” Lilian asked quietly.

“A Blood-Vanishing Curse. Miss Potter will need to go to the hospital wing. Come.”

He led her out of the lab, levitating Mary’s still-unconscious form ahead of them.

“Professor, may I go find Hermione Granger? I’m sure she’d like to be there as well, when Mary wakes up.”

“You may,” the professor said absently, obviously preoccupied with something.

Lilian had run to the library at once, where she knew Hermione was planning to be, revising for their History exam the next day.

They reached the Hospital wing not far behind Professor Snape and Mary, in time to overhear the professor say, “Blood-Vanishing Curse,” from behind a curtain.

The medi-witch gasped, “But isn’t that…?”

“Yes, very,” Professor Snape said drily.

“And the counter is nearly as bad,” Madam Pomfrey said, something like reproach in her tone.

“Aren’t you glad, then, that you didn’t have to do it?”

“Sometimes I worry about you, Severus. Do you know who did it?”

“I have an idea.”

“And…?”

“And I will _take care of it_ , Poppy. I always do.”

“Oh, Severus,” the older witch fretted, “Sometimes I worry about you a lot.”

“Do yourself a favor, Poppy,” the professor said, a hint of dark amusement in his tone. “Don’t.”

“I can’t help it. You’ll find him?”

“That’s what tracking spells are for, Poppy.” The professor sounded a bit bored.

“Tracking spells don’t…”

“This one does,” Professor Snape cut her off. Lilian could almost imagine the cold, snake’s smile he would be giving her. It was the same smile he gave anyone who threatened his House or its children. She was fairly sure it would be the last thing Quirrell ever saw.

“Be careful, Severus.”

The professor didn’t even bother justifying that with a response. The next thing the girls heard was the opening and closing of the Hospital Wing door.

“Oh, hello, dearies,” Madam Pomfrey said, flicking Mary’s curtain aside. “Bit of nasty business, this, but Miss Potter should be right as rain with a few blood replenishers and a good night’s rest. Up you get, love,” she added, waking Mary gently. “We just need to get a couple of these into you, yes, that’s right, swallow it down, there’s a love…”

After Mary took her potions and subsided back into unconsciousness, the medi-witch bustled off again, doubtless to deal with one of her other patients.

“Do you think he’s gone after Quirrell?” Hermione asked, as soon as she was gone.

“Almost definitely.”

“Do you… do you think he knows it’s really… Quirrellmort?” the Ravenclaw asked, somewhat hesitantly.

That was an excellent question. Lilian wasn’t actually sure what Snape knew, but she was fairly certain that he and McGonagall didn’t talk all that much – if they did, McGonagall would definitely have had something to say about the Dragon Fiasco when they were in her office on Sunday. So…

“No, I don’t know. Maybe? But probably not.”

“We should warn him.”

Lilian didn’t disagree, but… “How are we supposed to do that?”

The girls sat quietly, considering the problem for several minutes. They were interrupted by a girl in a Hufflepuff tie who burst into the ward, holding her arm and crying about Professor Snape rudely knocking her over as she was trying to get on the third-floor moving staircase.

“You don’t think…”

“He was going after Quirrell, and he did say he had a tracking spell.”

“But do you think Quirrell would really go back down there?”

“What have I been saying all week? No common sense! So yes. The daft blighter most definitely would. He probably cursed Mary, and now he’s trying to get the Stone and skip out tonight. It’s probably why he cancelled our exams tomorrow! Come on!” Hermione stood, pulling at Lilian’s arm.

“Wait, what?”

“We’ve got to try to catch up to Professor Snape and warn him about Quirrellmort. Let’s go!”

Lilian bit her lip, but nodded. She didn’t think they would catch him, but Hermione was right – they had to try. With one last look at their unconscious friend, the two girls left Madam Pomfrey’s domain, the door slamming shut behind them.


	18. Chapter 17: A Stone, a Shade, Three Lies and the Truth

###  Thursday 25 June 1992 (early evening)

#### Hogwarts’ Hospital Wing

Mary woke with a start to the white curtains and blank ceiling of the Hospital Wing. Her scar was burning and Quirrellmort was nowhere near – something was _wrong_. She had to find Maia and Lils. They would know what was happening. She had just managed to throw off her covers when Madam Pomfrey bustled in.

“Sorry, dear. Just got caught up a mo’ with Miss Davies – terrible case of NEWT stress. Now then, let’s have a look at you!”

The Healer began some sort of diagnostic charm as Mary asked frantically, “Madam Pomfrey, where are my friends? What time is it? How long have I been here?”

“Just gone six, dearie. Your little friends ran off about half an hour ago.”

That wasn’t good. Mary couldn’t imagine why Hermione or Lilian would have left – five-thirty was far too early for dinner.

She schooled her expression into something she hoped looked like innocence, and not like someone was stabbing her in the face with a white-hot poker. “Oh. Um… can I go down to dinner, then?”

Madam Pomfrey frowned at the output of her diagnostic charm, a series of glowing red numbers and letters that she copied down on the scroll that rested on Mary’s bedside table.

“I normally wouldn’t. Your magical reserves are perilously low, as is your blood-iron level, but aside from that, there appears to be nothing wrong. You’re lucky Professor Snape caught it when he did and knew the countercurse. But with exams ending, I’ll likely need the bed tonight. Bloody seventh-years manage to do something phenomenally stupid that sends at least five of them here every year,” she informed the near-frantic first-year. “Mind you eat lots of spinach and red meat for the next few days, and I’ll see you in here before the Feast on Saturday for a checkup, yes?”

“Yes, Madam Pomfrey. Thank you!”

The Healer nodded. “No magic if you can avoid it, or you’ll be right back in here tomorrow!” she shouted as Mary ran for the door.

#### Hogwarts’ Library

Mary burst through the doors of the Great Hall, searching the Ravenclaw table for Hermione’s distinctive, bushy hair, and then the Slytherin table for Lilian’s familiar face. They weren’t there! She turned and ran again, headed for the library. When in doubt, Hermione would _always_ go to the library.

Mary had checked half of Hermione’s usual tables when the Weasley twins found her.

“Not-Mary!”

“We couldn’t help,”

“But notice,”

“You seem to,”

“Be having some sort of a,”

“Problem.”

“Not now, guys!” she snapped impatiently.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” asked one of the twins.

“Not unless you can tell me exactly where Maia and Lils have got off to in the next thirty seconds! I have to find them, it’s really important,” she said, pressing her hand to her scar as hard as she could. It helped, slightly.

The twins shared a look, then each of them grabbed one of her arms, and they pulled her deeper into the library.

“Do it, Fred.”

Fred pulled out a blank piece of parchment and tapped it with his wand. “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good!” and lines of ink began to spread like spiderwebs from the tip of his wand.

George poked it with his own wand and muttered, “Emergency, Marauders!” The entire page turned black in a flash, and cleared in the next moment to show what appeared to be a very small map of the castle with tiny labeled dots moving around. Most of them were concentrated in the Great Hall.

“What _is_ this?” Mary whispered, peering at the map.

“Weren’t you in a hurry?” asked Fred, as he tapped the map again and muttered “Locum: Granger.”

“It’s the Marauders’ Map,” said George, as though that explained anything. The image suddenly changed, focusing in on a room in the First Dungeon Level. “Oh, that’s not good!”

“What?”

“They’re in Dumbledore’s stupid obstacle course, first room.”

“They’re still moving, though, so they must be getting through the Devil’s Snare alright.”

“But we’ve already… Why would they go down there again? And who are those other dots?”

Fred zoomed in. “Quirrell’s in the last room, and Snape is in the… third, with the giant chess set, but he’ll probably catch Quirrell soon. Second to last is his test, after all, and he strikes me as the sort who’s good at chess.”

Mary had stopped paying attention right after Professor Snape was identified. “Shit! They must have gone after Snape! Guys, you’ve got to help me catch them!”

“Why?”

“What’s going on?”

“Quirrell is Voldemort, and he’s trying to steal the Philosopher’s Stone! Snape went to stop him, and I’d bet anything that Maia and Lils went after Snape to warn him that Quirrell’s really Quirrellmort. But Snape used to be a Death Eater! He can take Quirrell in a fight – he did at Halloween, and Quirrell’s only gotten weaker, you can tell just looking at him. But they’re going to run right into the crossfire and distract Snape! We’ve got to stop them.” She looked back and forth between the boys, still pressing on her scar.

They looked at each other again, then shrugged and said together, “All right, we’re in.”

“Great!” Mary made to leap up out of her seat, but the Weasleys grabbed her.

“Wait a second. George?”

George tapped the map again. “Snake pit’s warren!” he ordered, and the map changed accordingly. “There’s _always_ a back door. You can sneak in to the last chamber directly from the Slytherin dorms.”

“Or the Headmaster’s office,” Fred added.

“Look, it’s this passage here, from the third-level dungeons. Not sure exactly where this is, but –“

“I can find it! Can I borrow this?”

“Ummm…” the twins hesitated, which was good enough for Mary. She snatched the map off the table.

“Great! Thanks! You guys follow them from the third floor, see if you can’t stop them before they run into trouble, and I’ll try to head them off the other direction.”

She left the library at a run. Behind her she thought she heard one of the boys say, “Did that daft firstie just steal our map?”

#### The Final Room

Mary paused in at her bedroom just long enough to grab the invisibility cloak and throw it over herself. She wasn’t about to run straight into Quirrellmort’s arms, after all. She lit her wand and held the tip close to the map, under the cloak. Professor Snape was in the troll room, and Quirrellmort was still pacing around the last room. Hermione and Lilian were in the door to the third room not moving at all.

She found her own dot and started moving toward the exit that led to the last chamber.

It was surprisingly easy to navigate the Snake Pit when it was entirely deserted and you had a map. She didn’t even have to look for way-markers. The passage was near the seventh-year boys’ junction. She reached the back door just after Professor Snape crossed into the room. Hermione and Lilian were approaching the potion room, probably on a broom, from the rate they were going. Professor Snape’s dot approached Quirrellmort. Mary held her breath as she slipped into the final room.

The room was large and open, lit by wall sconces just like the rest of the dungeons, but without the interior arches. The Mirror of Erised stood in the center of the space, but its impressiveness was ruined by the spectacular duel going on between it and Mary.

Blue and green and gold shields appeared and disappeared around the combatants. Jets of light in every color bounced off of them or were absorbed. Several hit the mirror and bounced off of that as well. Professor Snape had thrown off his outer robes and was dodging acid-green curses like a ninja, all in black, save for his silver and green Slytherin tie. He was toying with Quirrell, the ridiculous little man in his purple turban already moving slowly. Mary quickly realized that she could not stay still – any stray ricochet could hit her, and she somehow doubted that the curses they were using were anything but fatal. She began to edge around the room, heading for the black-flame door.

Suddenly, a hideously (slightly muffled?), high-pitched voice shrieked, “She is _here!_ The girl-child is _here_! Kill her, my servant! Rip the life from her body!”

A look of pure hate spread across Professor Snape’s face, and he used the moment of distraction to blast off Quirrell’s turban. The back of the man’s head was still facing Mary and she screamed when she saw what lay beneath the purple fabric: a second face, chalk white, with glaring red eyes, and slits for nostrils, like a snake.

Her scar _pulsed_ , and the pain was so bad that she fell to the ground, her cloak falling open. The map and her wand slipped from numb fingers and she watched helplessly as a black cloud detached itself from Quirrell, boiling toward her with those same, awful eyes. It tried to smother her, invading her nose and mouth, seeping in through her ears and her very tear-ducts, and most of all through the scar, directly into her mind. She heard his awful voice inside her head asking, of all things, “What the hell is this?” and then he writhed and _screamed_ , the wordless, nearly-soundless expression of a snake in pain.

And then he was gone, out of her mind entirely, a black cloud floating in front of her, still writhing and hissing incoherently, almost more like an overboiling teakettle than a snake.

_< Leave me alone!>_ she shouted at it.

_< What _are _you? >_ it asked.

_< Go _away _! >_

And then Professor Snape, with a look of absolute disdain on his face, slit Quirrell’s throat with some kind of hex, and strolled across the chamber, taking in the scene of half-invisible first-year student and demon-eyed wraith hissing at each other and writhing in mutual pain.

“I _suggest_ ,” he addressed the wraith, “that you go now, lest I banish you to the fires of Morhenna.”

_< Go, before he crushes you beneath his heel, foul not-snake creature!>_ Mary added in Parsel for good measure.

The wraith did _not_ go. It made as though to move toward Professor Snape, but he waved his wand and a cage of fiery runes surrounded it. It cringed back from the cage, trapped. The professor began speaking slowly and clearly in a language that sounded nothing like the Latin and Greek students learned for their classes.

“Iarraim ar chumhachtaí an lae!” Professor Snape clapped his hands sharply, his wand vanished into his sleeve. Magic began to swirl lazily around the chamber.

“Iarraim ar na cumhachtaí hoíche!” Clap. The sense of magic grew stronger.

“Ag an chumhacht ordúil ordaímse duit!” Clap, clap.

“Cuirim tú ar shiúl, spiorad salach, draíocht dorcha.” Clap.

“Téigh anois chuig gach áit tháinig tú.” Clap. The pressure now was almost as bad as the pain in her scar.

“Thrice anois liom a sheolann tú as an áit seo!” Two claps again.

“A bheith imithe!” And the magic collapsed, compressing the wraith out of existence with a final hissing shriek.

The pain in Mary’s scar subsided at once.

Professor Snape sank to the floor next to Mary and lay down, flat on his back.

Mary crawled over to him, “Professor Snape? Professor? Are you okay?”

The professor rolled his eyes at her and groaned. “Mary Elizabeth, just… Shut up a minute.”

Mary tried to sit back on her heels, only to become terribly dizzy. She decided that it might be the better part of valor to lie down and close her eyes as well.

Some time later, she regained consciousness cradled in strong arms and looked up at the face of her head of House. “Oh, good,” she said irrationally, “you are okay.”

He smiled, though, she thought. It was hard to tell from this angle. “Yes, you ridiculous child. I am fine. I just _hate_ light rituals,” he said, “that’s all.”

They were still in the chamber, and he was looking at the map, standing near the secret passage. “You can’t get in,” she said, trying to be helpful. “All the exits are only exits.”

The professor actually laughed at that. “For everyone else, maybe, but Bella always was a bit of a show-off, and being the Head of the House has its advantages.” _< open>_ he added with a hiss. The doorway appeared.

“Your accent is terrible,” she informed him. “It’s _open_.”

“I regret to inform you that there was no audible difference between the sound you just made and the sound I just made.”

“Who’s the parselmouth here?” Mary asked before she could stop herself.

The professor muttered something suspiciously like “smartarse,” as he carried her through the tunnel. “What were you doing in that room, anyway?” he asked as he ghosted them through the passageway.

“Erm… nothing?”

“ _Nothing_ will _not_ suffice, in this instance, Miss Potter.” The professor didn’t sound very serious, despite his sharp words.

“ _Fine_ ,” Mary sighed. “You obviously followed Quirrellmort –“

“Quirrellmort?”

“Quirrellmort,” Mary confirmed with a yawn. “I told the Professor to watch him and I think she said something, because he tried to kill me and then disappeared. You followed him into the Diversion, and when I woke up in hospital, Maia and Lils were gone. My scar was hurting so I knew something was wrong. The Weasleys gave me the map – well, I kind of just took it after I saw how things were shaping up, and I went to try to stop them from catching you. I think they were trying to warn you about the Dark Lord possessing Quirrell, but they would have just gotten in the way. Erm… did they ever get out of the Potion room?”

Professor Snape ignored all of the frankly disturbing details of that confession, from her scar hurting when the Dark Lord was active to the Weasleys having access to the Marauders’ Map, and answered the question. “Yes. Ronald Weasley and Neville Longbottom rescued them.” He checked the map again. “And are now trapped themselves, it seems.”

“Oh. Okay, then.” Both were silent for a moment as Professor Snape continued to navigate the tunnels and hidden passageways of the school, headed for, Mary thought, the Hospital wing, again. “I’m sorry, sir,” she offered.

“Why?”

“For barging in and making everything go to hell.”

The professor shrugged. “It’s not as though you did any damage. I would have had to exorcise that damn shade after I killed Quirrell regardless.”

Mary thought about that for a time. “Did you… were you… planning on that? Killing Quirrell?”

Professor Snape actually looked down at Mary, meeting her eyes this time as he smiled (somewhat sinisterly) and said, “It was always a possibility.”

So, _yes, but he can’t say that out loud_ , she interpreted. She wondered if he expected her to object. She could think of only one complaint: “Why couldn’t you have done it sooner, then? He’s been trying to kill me all year you know!”

Professor Snape laughed so hard he had to lean against the wall for support.

“I’m glad you approve, ridiculous child.” He stepped into an alcove across from the hospital wing doors and removed the invisibility cloak. “I will return this to your room. I don’t know whose idea it was to give a first-year an invisibility cloak, but far be it from me to say you don’t use it well. Better than your father did, at any rate.”

“And the map?”

The professor sighed and handed it over. “I suppose it is rightfully yours, just as much as the cloak.”

“What?”

“James Potter and his merry band of trouble-makers made this,” he said, folding the map and handing it over. “I spent all of sixth year trying to figure out how they kept tracking me down. I never forgave your mother after she admitted that she helped Lupin with the runework for it. It is impressive, though, for a bunch of teenagers.”

“Were –“ Mary yawned, “Were you and Lily friends?”

“A long time ago,” Professor Snape said brusquely. “Now. I am going to check you into Madam Pomfrey’s care. You will come to my office tomorrow afternoon or Saturday and we will talk about this… little misadventure then.”

“Yes, sir,” Mary said, and closed her eyes.

“Good.” Mary was asleep before they reached the doors. Severus hid the cloak in his robe pocket and stuffed the folded map into the girl’s before he opened them.

###  Thursday 25 June 1992 (late evening)

#### Headmaster’s Office

##### Severus

Severus climbed the spiral stair up to the Headmaster’s office two steps at a time, adrenaline still coursing through his veins. The child was safely delivered to Poppy, the cloak was back in her trunk, and the only thing he had yet to do was talk to Dumbledore about the whole mess.

Exorcism and exhausted child aside, it was nights like this that reminded him why he became a Death Eater in the first place – oh, their political ambitions were attractive, of course, but he could hardly deny the bone-deep satisfaction of practicing the Dark Arts or the primal _rush_ of killing one’s enemies in battle. He took a deep breath to steady himself and locked such inappropriate thoughts deeply behind his mental shields before entering the office.

Dumbledore, of course, was sitting behind his desk, even though it was well after curfew and he had no reason to be there. It was a small consolation to Severus that the phoenix was gone, and the Headmaster appeared to be wearing a bathrobe. He must have tripped a ward coming up the stairs.

“Quirrell is dead,” he said, with no preamble.

“Is he really? Well, I suppose that’s not entirely surprising,” the old wizard remarked, apparently not bothered. But then, Severus thought sarcastically, this one did last the entire term.

“He was possessed by the Dark Lord. I found him in the Mirror Room. I believe that he was trying to steal the Stone before fleeing the Castle after several attempts to murder Miss Potter.”

“And so you killed him?” Dumbledore raised an eyebrow.

“In defense of a student.”

“For that to be the case, my boy, a student must have been present.”

“And so one was. Where is your pensieve?”

The Headmaster gestured at a cabinet and the stone bowl floated to his desk. Severus sneered internally: the wandless summoning was just showing off. He drew long, silvery strands of memory from his temple and placed them in the bowl. Dumbledore made a questioning face, but Severus shook his head. He had just witnessed it, after all. There was no need for him to accompany the Headmaster into the pensieve. The old man folded his hands together and placed the tips of his index fingers into the memories. His eyes went cloudy, and he froze while the memories played out behind his eyes in real-time. Severus had entered all the relevant moments from the point that Mary Elizabeth had fainted after her Potions practical. By his calculations, he should have about an hour’s time before the old man emerged from the memory-trance.

Severus chose a book on bloodwards from the Headmaster’s shelves and settled in to wait. He had been wondering about a certain blood based “protection” for some time now.

Nearly an hour later, as expected, the Headmaster shook himself from his trance to find Severus staring at him and looking utterly bored, a copy of the latest issue of the Modern Potions Journal folded over the arm of his chair.

“Well, I think that does explain rather a lot. I must say, that plan worked out far better than I had expected! Good work with that devocation, too!” Dumbledore seemed unusually pleased, given that he had just witnessed one of his professors kill another. “I’d go so far as to say that that went precisely according to plan, wouldn’t you?”

“All according to plan, Dumbledore, really?” Severus asked in his most sardonic tone. “Your _plan_ required me to kill a fellow professor, almost allowed the Dark Lord’s Shade to possess Mary Potter, and endangered at _least_ two other students, even if we discount the fact that you allowed the Dark Lord nearly unlimited access to the school for nine months and your ridiculous diversion constantly luring Gryffindors and Ravenclaws into idiotic, but not idiot-proof traps. Try again. No, wait. I have a better question: What the bloody hell are you planning to tell Miss Potter about this whole mess?”

Dumbledore twinkled at Severus in what Severus suspected Dumbledore thought was a benign way. Severus glared. Dumbledore might be four times his age, but Severus would _not_ be cowed like a naughty schoolboy.

“Can I assume that you will fill her in on the relevant details?” he asked impatiently. Probably not, he thought, nor Minerva either. That duty would likely fall to Severus, as the most unpleasant duties normally did.

“Of course!” Severus raised an eyebrow. “I believe I will tell her,” Dumbledore continued, “That it was her mother’s sacrifice that allowed her to repel the Dark Lord’s shade, and that her mother’s love continues to protect her even now.”

Severus barely repressed a derisive snort at this. _No, then_. Lily’s sacrifice was only still active insofar as Dumbledore had placed a very powerful, very illegal bloodward (confirmed by the very book he had been reading while Dumbledore perused his memories) on the Dursley family and Mary herself on the basis of the connection between Lily, Mary, and Petunia. Now he even knew which one it was. “Are you going to tell her about the prophecy?”

Dumbledore looked a bit ashamed, but said, “No. I decided at the beginning of the year that she was too young, and I stand by that decision. She is just a girl, Severus. Eleven years old! Far, far too young to bear the guilt of being the cause of her parents’ deaths.”

Severus’ mouth nearly dropped open. “You cannot be serious. She is going to want to know why the Dark Lord was and _is_ trying to kill her.”

“But I am, Severus. Would you have wanted to know that it was only to kill you that your parents had been murdered? She is surely not at fault, of course, but she was the cause, nonetheless.”

“No!” Severus nearly shouted. “She is not at fault, nor is she even indirectly the _cause_. If anyone is, it is I, or the Dark Lord, or _you_ , even, with your idiotic wards and Fidelius Charm! The Dark Lord did the deed – I made it possible – but you pushed him into it! Did you know that the only reason he chose Lily, in the end, was because she had so suddenly disappeared from the battlefield? If things had gone the other way, Bellatrix would have captured her! She would have lived! If you hadn’t insisted that it was a child born in _that July_ , and hidden the Potters away, he might never have attacked her at all!”

“You cannot believe that,” Dumbledore said gently.

“Nine _hells_ I can’t!” Severus raged. In a distant, more balanced corner of his mind, he noted that he was somewhat out of practice dealing with people he hated while high on Dark Magic and murder. He used to be so _good_ at this!

“Severus, my dear boy, Lily and James both stood against Voldemort. They fought him directly three times each. He would never have let them live.”

Severus shook his head slowly, locking down his emotions as well as he could. “James Potter was a pureblood and a bully. Don’t interrupt, you know he was an arrogant twat. He was _exactly_ the kind of person the Dark Lord wanted for his Inner Circle. He turned away the Dark Lord’s recruiters for Lily’s sake. If she had turned, he would have followed, and Black, and Lupin and his werewolves.” Severus sneered at the thought of the Marauders joining the Inner Circle, but they would have been welcomed by the Dark Lord, and Bellatrix, too. It was just ironic that the whole world thought Black had been on the Dark side all along.

“But Lily… you never knew Lily Evans very well, did you, Dumbledore? Not even when she was a student. You’ve memorialized her as your perfect little Gryffindor princess, and you believe that’s all she ever was. But in fifth year she realized that the Dark was more progressive on Creature Rights, and the Light was just as sexist and backward as the Dark in many ways. By graduation she was ready to defend herself and other muggleborns against the Dark Lord, but she would not have followed you blindly into hell like your idiot light peons. She was as grey as they come.”

Dumbledore looked as though he wanted to dispute that, or maybe the insinuation that his followers were idiots, but Severus talked over him. “ _Lily Evans_ had the highest Death Eater kill-count of anyone in the Order. Did you know that?” Apparently not – the old wizard looked rather startled. “Between calling down the moon on Imbolc of ’79 and then animating all the fallen at Diagon Alley? Yes. We kept track of that sort of thing, and McCulloch laid over fifty deaths at her feet. The only other Order members who came close were the Prewett twins. They had about ninety kills between them. Black was a distant third. She dueled Bellatrix at her wedding, and healed every person in your little army at least once. She cursed the Dark Lord _twice_ , and escaped both times. She directly subverted his compulsion ritual on Mabon back in ’78, not three months out of school! She _single handedly_ convinced the Dark Lord to stop attacking on major sabbats, because she was _that_ good at ritual magic. I watched her face down the Young Power in the Aspect of Artemis after the Imbolc Rout, and the goddess _laughed_. It was like spring coming early.” Severus trailed off, lost in the memory for a moment before he recalled himself to his original train of thought. Dumbledore, miracle of miracles, stayed quiet. He hadn’t been there that day.

“Fucking hell, Dumbledore, Lily impressed _Bellatrix. No one_ impressed Bellatrix. _Bella_ wanted to _recruit_ her – there was a no-kill order on Lily for _two years_ before that night, and she knew that Lily was a muggleborn! If the Dark Lord wasn’t convinced by _your_ actions that you _knew_ Mary Potter was the only person the prophecy could possibly indicate, Bellatrix would have done _anything_ in her power to ensure that it was _anyone_ else. She wanted Lily for herself. She _begged_ the Dark Lord not to go that night, because if there was anyone you shouldn’t try to kill on Death’s Night, it was Lily Evans. She said it in front of the _entire_ Inner Circle.” Severus laughed harshly. “She even pointed out that he had underestimated ‘that Potter bitch’ before, and he ordered her to let _Lucius Malfoy_ play with her for the insult of thinking him weak!”

Come to think of it, perhaps Bella had been hoping to get her dear mentor killed. He could hardly back out of going after that little scene. Severus had believed that she was truly loyal to the Dark Lord, but was it true? That would be a thing to consider at greater length later… Dumbledore looked slightly confused, and perhaps a little angry that Severus had apparently held back so much during his tenure as a spy.

“Stupid Death Eater politics. You don’t want to know the kind of games Bella and Lucy played. It was never anything that could help the war effort,” Severus explained with a dismissive gesture before completing his tirade. “If I had never delivered that stupid single line of the gods-forsaken prophecy, or if _you_ had never hidden the Potters away, or, fuck it, if _Bellatrix_ had just made her fucking power play back in ’78, _yes_ , I _do_ believe that Lily could have lived!”

There was a long moment of silence before Dumbledore finally spoke, over-done, false sorrow in his voice. “We cannot change the past, Severus. We will never know what might have been. We can only move forward. Neville Longbottom is the Child of the Prophecy. Mary Potter will keep the spotlight and allow him to do what needs to be done. When Voldemort returns, and I have no doubt that he will, we will be ready. But to fulfil her role, Mary must not, cannot know the full extent of our plans. You understand this necessity, don’t you, my boy?” Severus nodded slowly. Oh, yes. He understood quite well what Dumbledore asked of him and why. And he knew precisely why he was not going to comply.

“Wonderful, wonderful. Now, tell me what you think of the Longbottom boy!”

Severus was trapped in Dumbledore’s office answering questions about Neville Longbottom’s deficiencies as a student for over an hour before he managed to make his escape.

###  Friday 26 June 1992 (morning)

#### Hogwarts’ Hospital Wing

Something gold was glinting just above Mary, just out of her reach. She blinked twice, and things came into focus. It was a pair of glasses, perched on the nose of one Albus Dumbledore.

“Good morning, Mary,” said Dumbledore.

Mary stared at him for a moment, decided that this interview might go a lot more smoothly if she claimed she didn’t remember anything, and said: “Sir! Professor Snape went after Quirrell and my friends followed him! Are they alright?”

“Calm yourself, dear girl. You are a little behind the times. Your friends are fine. They were trapped in the Potions Chamber, for a second time, I believe.”

“And Professor Snape? He caught him?”

“Mary, please relax, or Madam Pomfrey will have me thrown out. Severus is fine. Quirinus was stopped, though I don’t imagine he would have had much luck capturing the Stone in the first place.”

“Stone, sir? But… I thought… wasn’t the obstacle course a diversion?”

“Indeed, and it worked perfectly!” Dumbledore seemed very cheerful about the whole thing. His very presence, from the bright robes to the happiness in his voice, made Mary’s head hurt. She looked around the room for a moment, and was astounded to see a table piled high with what looked like half a candy shop.

“Tokens from your friends and admirers,” Dumbledore explained, beaming. “What happened down in the dungeons is a complete secret, so naturally the whole school knows. I believe Misters Fred and George Weasley tried to send you a toilet seat. No doubt they thought it would amuse you. Madam Pomfrey, however, felt it might not be very hygienic, and confiscated it.”

Mary very nearly raised an eyebrow at the obvious distraction tactic. “How long have I been in here?”

“Just the night. Miss Moon and Miss Granger will be most relieved you have come round. They have been extremely worried.”

“Of _course_ they were. What are people saying? Did they know I went after them? I can’t believe they were so _stupid_! Hermione’s the one who kept saying that wizards haven’t got any common sense at all, and then they just go off and!”

“Miss Potter, please, breathe.”

“What happened? Professor Snape stopped Quirrell, you said, but did he get the Dark Lord? I- I don’t remember.”

“Call him Voldemort, Mary. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”

“Wait… what? I’m not scared of the _name._ And anyway, Voldemort _can’t_ be his proper name. No one names their kid _Voldemort_. I bet it’s like… Quincey, or something.”

Dumbledore laughed at that. “I’m afraid his true name is not widely known. I believe he made a special effort to kill anyone who might have known it, early in his rise to power.”

“Fine, then. Voldemort.” Mary made a face. She couldn’t make a habit of saying the Dark Lord’s name in the Snake Pit. That would be breaking the Truce, given who she was. “Has he gone, then?”

“I’m afraid not, Mary.” Dumbledore looked so morose it had to be an act. “He is still out there somewhere, perhaps looking for another body to share. Not being truly alive, you see, he cannot be killed. He left Quirrell to die; he shows as little mercy to his followers as his enemies. Nevertheless, Mary, while you and Professor Snape may only have delayed his return to power, it will merely take someone else who is prepared to fight the next time as well, and if he is delayed again and again, why, he may never return to power.”

Mary nodded, but stopped quickly, both because it made her head hurt, and also because she remembered that she was pretending not to remember anything. “Wait – what did _I_ do? I remember heading through the backdoor and seeing Quirrell and Professor Snape dueling, and then – nothing.”

“You, my dear child,” Dumbledore said with a fond smile, “Were nearly possessed by Voldemort yourself. Professor Snape tells me that you provided an excellent distraction at a key moment, and that Voldemort’s spirit fled when it could not enter you.”

“What stopped him?” This was really the main thing Mary had been wondering about since the confrontation in the room with the mirror.

The old wizard frankly _beamed._ “Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign… to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very blood. Voldemort, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, could not touch you for this reason. He cannot possess a person marked by something so good.” Mary tried her best to hide her utter disbelief at this statement. She was already skeptical about the power of love thing, but he lost her completely when _ambition_ was supposed to be one of the reasons Voldemort couldn’t touch her.

“But why did he want to kill me in the first place? You just said she died to save me… but I was just a baby. Wasn’t she fighting him? Why would he want to kill me and not her?”

“That I cannot tell you. Not today. Not now. You will know, one day… Put it from your mind for now, Mary. When you are older. I know you hate to hear this. When you are ready, you will know.”

Mary suspected it would do her no good to argue, but she was not pleased. He clearly _knew_. Maybe the Professor could wrangle it out of him as her guardian. Or maybe Professor Snape would know.

“Fine,” she said petulantly, and instantly decided to see what else he _would_ tell her. “Do you know who sent me the invisibility cloak?”

“Ah, your father happened to leave it in my possession, and I thought you might like it.” The Headmaster’s eyes twinkled. “Useful things… your father used it mainly for sneaking off to the kitchens to steal food, when he was here.”

“Why didn’t you keep it, then?” Mary asked before she could stop herself.

“It wasn’t mine, of course,” was the quick response.

There was something fishy about that. “But then, why did you keep it all these years? You could have put it in their vault or something. I know you had the key.”

Dumbledore shrugged. “It entirely slipped my mind. I came across it in an old trunk early in December, and realized that you should have it.”

“Hmmm,” Mary decided to let it go. “All right. Mr. Lupin, over the Hols, he came to visit, did you know? Anyway, he said that my dad would have had a fit knowing that Professor Snape was my head of house. Do you know why? He wouldn’t say.”

“Ah, well… your parents and Professor Snape went to school together, and your father and Professor Snape did rather detest each other. Not unlike Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Weasley. And then, young James did something dear Severus could never forgive.”

“What?”

“He saved his life.”

“What?” That didn’t make any sense. Well, it did make sense that Snape would be pissed to be in debt to his enemy, but why would James have saved his life in the first place? Malfoy would never save Weasley.

“Yes…” said Dumbledore dreamily. “Funny, the way people’s minds work, isn’t it? Professor Snape couldn’t bear to be in your father’s debt…”

“No, not that!” Mary interrupted. “That makes perfect sense. Why did James save Professor Snape?”

Dumbledore frowned. “You should call him your father, Miss Potter.”

“Why? I never knew him as my father.” Mary was genuinely confused. And it seemed somewhat presumptive for Dumbledore to tell her how to address her dead parents.

“That does not change the fact that he was, and he loved you just as much as your mother. They sacrificed themselves to save you, which is the greatest gift any parent can give for their child.”

“Well,” Mary drawled, unconsciously channeling Lilian, “That is a lovely sentiment. But I don’t think you understand, Headmaster. You know about the Truce, right?”

Dumbledore nodded.

“For better or worse, I’m the ‘Girl Who Lived,’” she made air quotes with her fingers “and I live in the Snake Pit, where every second person is the child of a Death Eater or an Allied Dark House. It is _not_ in my best interests to go around calling my parents anything other than Lily and James, or calling the Dark Lord by his ‘proper’ name” more air quotes “and I don’t need any help understanding why you would hate to owe a person you hated for saving your life. So why would _James_ help Professor Snape?”

“Because it was the right thing to do,” the headmaster said somewhat coldly, “And your parents were true Gryffindors.”

Mary stopped herself from rolling her eyes at this, but it was a close thing.

“Now, if that is all of your questions, I suggest we ought to discuss your return to the Dursleys for the summer.”

“WHAT? No. Never. I am never, ever going back to the Dursleys. Ever.” If Dumbledore had ever had even a little of Mary’s trust, it disappeared then and there.

“But it is necessary, my dear girl, in order to maintain the protections your mother left you.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.”

“ _Language_ , Miss Potter,” the Headmaster snapped, but Mary ignored him.

“But I’m not doing it. They were _horrible_. You’re not my guardian. If you try to send me back there, or make Professor McGonagall do it, I’ll go straight to my caseworker’s office and have you arrested. I don’t care about the protections. If I get possessed, do a bloody exorcism.” She crossed her arms and glared as fiercely as she could from her hospital bed.

“Now, now, Miss Potter, there is no need to overreact,” Dumbledore began, but Mary interrupted again.

“I am NOT overreacting! I lived in the CUPBOARD UNDER THE STAIRS until I got my letter! I wore rags to school, and Dudley beat me up, and I was lucky if I got to eat every day! And no one said anything because they thought it would only make things worse! _AND_ if you hadn’t been on the continent over the summer, I bet you’d never have let Professor McGonagall come rescue me. No! They don’t want me back, and I am never _going_ back, and you can’t make me!”

For a brief moment, it looked as though Dumbledore wanted to contest some part of that statement, but the moment passed, and the Headmaster excused himself from the awkward silence.

* * *

Shortly after the Headmaster left, Hermione and Lilian appeared. Madam Pomfrey let them in rather reluctantly, and Mary convinced Hermione to take notes while she re-hashed the conversation with Dumbledore. Lilian dug through the pile of candies to find a box of Chocolate Frogs and silenced the curtains around Mary’s bed. Once these chores were finished, the three girls settled into the hospital bed together and Lilian asked, “So what happened?”

Mary told them everything: the twins’ map and the backdoor, the duel she had walked in on, the mirror room, the Dark Lord possessing the back of Quirrell’s head, the look on Professor Snape’s face as he cut Quirrell’s throat, and the terrifying moment when she thought that she was going to be possessed next. Lilian and Hermione were a very good audience. They gasped in all the right places, and when Mary told them what was under Quirrell’s turban, Hermione screamed out loud. She shivered when Mary described the look on Snape’s face as he killed. At the end of it, Lilian gave her a feral grin and said she wished she could have been there. Both Mary and Hermione looked at her like she was insane.

“What? I’ve never seen someone die…” was her defense. Hermione smacked her in the back of the head.

“You should hope you never do, idiot girl! _Mary_ could have died!”

Mary quickly changed the subject. She really didn’t want to think about how close to death she had been the night before.

“So what happened to you two?”

Hermione was more than happy to take over the story-telling. “Well, you remember how everything’s set up down there. It wasn’t really _much_ worse this time. The Devil’s Snare is quite a bit larger now, but the Bluebell Flames worked to drive it off, and I made Aerin teach me that Summoning Charm – it’s dead useful and not _that_ difficult, I don’t know why it’s not taught until fourth-year – so we got the key alright too. Then there was that room with the checkerboard floor. It’s got a giant chess-set there now, guarding the way across. I thought we were going to have to play our way across or something, but then Lilian said –“

“Don’t be ridiculous, that will take way too long!”

“Right! And so we flew across instead. Then we just walked right into the big cavern. Remember how we all thought that maybe it was just a bluff, with the troll smell?”

“Ugh, yeah. That was awful.”

“Well, they finally got another troll for it, or else brought back the one that escaped at Halloween.”

“It was bigger than the one that escaped at Halloween,” Lilian clarified.

“Fine. They got a new troll, then. But it was already knocked out by the professors, so we flew across that room, too. And then, well…” Hermione looked somewhat embarrassed.

“We got stuck in Professor Snape’s trap, _again._ ”

“It wasn’t our fault, though!”

“Well, why didn’t you look up the potion to go _back_ as well as forward?”

“I _tried_! I couldn’t find anything about purple flames, though! It’s just dumb luck someone left that book on the Cursed Fire out in the library, or I wouldn’t have figured out about the antidote potion for that, either.”

Mary laughed. “So did you have to call for Cammy again?”

“No,” Hermione pouted at her. “Apparently the twins dared their brother Ron and his friend Neville to try their luck, and when the purple flames dropped to let them in, we stepped out instead. I tried to convince Ron that there was no way forward, but he was so stubborn and the troll smelled _so_ bad that eventually we just gave up and left. They were at breakfast this morning, though, so _someone_ must have rescued them, or else Neville got through that thick skull before the troll woke up.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Lilian continued, “by the time we made it back out, we found you had already been brought back and were in here. Madam Pomfrey wouldn’t let us stay the night, but…” the girl hesitated.

“Honestly, Lili? Lilian got Cammy to help borrow your cloak and we snuck in anyway. There, was that so hard?”

Mary giggled. “It’s fine, Lils. You know I’d let you borrow it whenever, anyway. I’m kind of surprised Cammy helped. You must have been very persuasive,” she grinned, and then added in her best Snape-voice: “Five points to Slytherin.”

The girls laughed hysterically at that before Hermione said, “I’m glad you’re okay, Lizzie.”

“Yeah,” added Lilian, “Slytherin would be dead boring without you.”

Mary grabbed their hands tightly. “I’m glad you both got out alright too. I was so worried. I just took off after you like some kind of Gryffindor wannabe!”

“But you did it in a sneaky way,” said Lilian with a grin, “So I’ll forgive you.” Hermione just rolled her eyes at the Slytherins.

And then Hermione said perhaps the most awful thing Mary had heard all day: “Come on, we need to convince Madam Pomfrey to let you go. We still have to sit the History of Magic exam after lunch!”

“But… but… but Her _mi_ one! I was almost possessed by the Dark Lord last night! I watched someone _die_! I don’t _want_ to take my history exam!”

Just then, they were interrupted by the Professor, who apparently had just heard that Mary was awake, and came to fuss over her and apologize profusely for not having been the one to save her, and tell her off for running headlong into danger like one of her own Gryffindors. It was clearly exceedingly awkward for both of them (though Lilian and Hermione looked amused).

Mary couldn’t help but try to reassure Professor McGonagall that she had done all she could have under the circumstances, and could hardly be considered responsible for the danger Mary put herself in. For some reason, the Professor didn’t find that to be particularly reassuring. Mary finally convinced her to leave around the time that Madam Pomfrey allowed Mary to go take her History exam. In hindsight, she might only have gone because she had to administer an exam of her own, but frankly, Mary didn’t care. She decided she hated being fussed over. It was worse than Cammy waiting on her over the summer.

###  Friday 26 June 1992 (evening)

#### Severus Snape’s Office

After dinner (and the history exam, which was just as awful as Mary expected), Lilian and Hermione accompanied Mary to Professor Snape’s office. She (reluctantly) returned the twins’ map at lunch, and spent the entire afternoon fending off questions about what had happened to Professor Quirrell (mostly by insisting that she didn’t remember anything).

The office door was slightly ajar, and Mary knocked tentatively.

“Enter,” Professor Snape looked up as they opened the door, and did not seem surprised that all three of them were present. “Miss Potter, Miss Moon, Miss Granger. Please close the door and have a seat.”

Hermione shot a questioning look at Mary, probably because she had never really talked to Professor Snape outside of class (except when they were being caught out of bounds or otherwise in trouble) – he was _never_ so nice as to say _please_ in class.

The girls sat and bid the professor good evening. He waved his wand and they felt magic wrap around the room as privacy wards snapped into place.

“Good evening,” he folded his hands patiently on the desk in front of him. The very fact that he seemed so calm and relaxed was vaguely sinister, given his usual temperament. “Which of you would like to explain exactly what happened yesterday evening?”

Lilian sat back in her chair – she knew that Hermione would answer any such question first, and probably more thoroughly than she would ever want to. Sure enough, the Ravenclaw was the first to speak.

“Well, you see, professor, we accompanied Lizzie to the hospital wing and waited with her for about half an hour, talking about Quirrell and all the strange ‘accidents’ that have happened to Lizzie this year. We believe that he was responsible for cursing her broom back in November as well, and it never was established how the troll got into the dungeons, was it? I mean, that room was pretty secure, it shouldn’t have been able to escape on its own, right?

“But we were also fairly certain that it wasn’t _just_ Quirrell working on his own. When we were in the Forest looking for the dying unicorn –“

Professor Snape raised a hand to stop Hermione. “What?”

“That was our detention for being out of bed after the dragon incident,” Lilian explained. “You sent us to Filch, and Filch gave us to Hagrid, and Hagrid took us out into the forest at night to look for a wounded unicorn.”

The professor pinched the bridge of his nose. “Something in the Forest was capable of hurting _unicorns_ , and those idiots sent a pack of first-years after it? Unbelievable…”

“That’s what we thought,” said Lilian, “But Hagrid basically told Draco that he should do as he was told or he would be expelled, and if Draco’s daddy can’t get him out of a detention like that, we certainly wouldn’t be able to, would we? So we went off into the Forest.”

“Right,” Hermione picked up the story again. “Lizzie and I went with Hagrid and Lili and Draco took Fang.”

“You _split up_? I will be having _words_ with Hagrid…” Professor Snape looked downright murderous.

“Erm, yes sir. Lili and Draco tried to skive off and ran into a herd of Thestrals and had to be rescued. Hagrid ran off to get them and then we split up again. I went with Draco and Hagrid while Lili and Lizzie took Fang. Lili?”

“Liz and I followed the blood to the unicorn. There was someone or something _feeding_ on it, drinking its blood. It was super creepy. And then Hagrid’s stupid dog whined and got its attention. And then this dark, smoky sort of ghost-thing -”

“The Dark Lord’s wraith,” Mary clarified.

“Right. It headed right for us and we tried to run but kind of fell all over ourselves. One of the centaurs came to our rescue – I still have no idea what he did to get rid of it, you know.”

“Strange centaur magic?” Hermione suggested.

Lilian shrugged. “I didn’t see anything.”

“Me either,” Mary confirmed.

“But anyway, the wraith took off and then Firenze, the centaur, basically told us that it was the Dark Lord and he was after the Philosopher’s Stone.”

“What he _said_ ,” Mary clarified, “was that only someone who had another route to immortality would drink unicorn blood because it’s cursed, and that coincidentally there was someone around who had been waiting for a decade to return to power… ‘can you think of no one’… cryptic git.”

“Right. So that’s when we figured out that Quirrell was really the Dark Lord, because he’s clearly been trying to kill Liz all year.”

“He’s been a bit of an idiot about it, really, if you ask me,” Hermione said.

“Why do you say that?” asked Professor Snape, apparently having given in to the girls’ informal reporting style.

“Well, he was trying to be really indirect, but he was _still_ really obvious about it, cancelling a class to go curse her broom? Really? If he wanted to be effective, he should have just stolen the stone and then thrown a fatal curse at her on his way out.” Mary smacked Hermione in the arm. “I’m glad he didn’t,” she added, “but it would have made more sense.”

“Yeah, well, this is the same guy who thought that the Philosopher’s Stone was the prize at the end of an obstacle course that a bunch of first-years and, like, three-quarters of the Gryffindors managed to get through. What the hell was up with that, by the way?” Lilian asked.

Professor Snape was pinching the bridge of his nose again. “Every six or seven years, the Headmaster puts together what he likes to call ‘a little challenge’ where he allows the students to ‘test their skills and daring’ in a relatively but not completely harmless setting. The last time, there was a maze in the Forbidden Forest. In my seventh year he convinced half the Gryffindors that there was a sunken treasure in the merpeople’s village in the lake. This bit of idiocy was actually relatively tame, aside from the fact that he tried to use it as a diversion for anyone who might think to steal the Stone.”

“But why was Quirrellmort so _stupid_? The Dark Lord can’t have been that dumb – he would never have gotten anywhere!” Mary protested. She desperately didn’t want her parents to have been killed by an idiot.

The former Death Eater considered the girls carefully before he spoke. “This does not leave this room, understood?”

The girls nodded eagerly.

“Very well then. The first thing, of course, is that possession takes a severe toll on the human body and the mind as well, even if it is voluntary, as I suspect this was. They needed the unicorn blood because Quirrell was dying, not because the Dark Lord needed it to revive himself. That is why Quirrell was even more of an idiot than usual in general. Secondly, I doubt that _Quirrell_ actually wanted to kill you, Miss Potter. The sheer obviousness of his attacks suggests that he was unable to refuse the Dark Lord’s compulsion to make the attempt, but it was warring with his own repulsion toward the idea. I believe the only tasks they were ever truly united on were stealing the Stone and trying to kill _me_ both times we dueled. Finally, Miss Potter, the Dark Lord was not always, as you put it, ‘that dumb.’ Back in 1978, just after she graduated, your mother foiled a plot of the Dark Lord which involved very strong ritual magic. He was trying to lay a compulsion on the muggles of London to hunt down and kill wizards. She stopped him and managed to bind his thought patterns into a series of knots, which increasingly impaired his ability to reason between spring of ’78 and his fall in ’81.”

Lilian laughed and said, “Wicked!”

Hermione looked like she was thinking over the implications of such magic existing.

“So… my mum was kind of amazing?” Mary asked.

“Lily Evans,” Professor Snape said sincerely, “was the most amazing witch I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.”

“Why didn’t the war end in 1978, then?” Hermione asked.

“Bellatrix Lestrange,” the professor said, his face carefully blank. “She was the Dark Lord’s favorite, his protégé, and second-in-command. She positioned herself between him and us, and began relaying her own more sensible orders, covering up his decline. Even in the Inner Circle, most Death Eaters did not realize the extent to which Lily had injured the Dark Lord.”

“You think she killed him,” Mary said suddenly. “Or blew him up, I guess, since he’s not really dead.”

The professor hesitated, then nodded.

Mary grinned. “Good. I’m glad _someone_ agrees with me that it was none of my doing. Is that what the Headmaster means when he goes on about a mother’s love protecting her child and such?”

“No,” the man rolled his eyes, “but we’ll get to that eventually.” He made an almighty effort, turning away from a discussion of Lily Evans, and brought the conversation back on track. “So you figured out that Quirrell was possessed by the Dark Lord. What then?”

“Oh!” said Hermione, “we told Professor McGonagall, since she’s the Deputy Head, and in charge of personnel. I think she went and talked to Quirrell about it, though, because he obviously cursed Lizzie the next chance he got, and then tried to get the Stone and run.” The Professor muttered something that sounded suspiciously like _Gryffindors_ , but Hermione continued. “You went after him, and we went after you to try to warn you about him being Quirrellmort and not just Quirrell, but we never caught up. We got stuck in the Potions Room because the Heart of Ice Potion was all gone, and we still don’t trust your clues, sir, so we weren’t about to drink whatever it was to get back through the purple flames.”

The potions master smirked. “Five points each to Slytherin and Ravenclaw. For your information, the purple flames were only an illusion. The potion to pass them was water with a bit of food dye.”

“Goddamnit.”

“ _Language_ , Miss Granger. And Miss Potter, your reason for entering the final chamber?”

“Well, I woke up in hospital because my scar was hurting, and Quirrellmort was nowhere to be seen, so I figured something bad was happening.”

“The lightning-bolt scar?” Mary nodded. “Does it often hurt?”

Mary shrugged. “Never before I came here, and usually only when Quirrellmort tried to meet my eyes. It was hurting the night we saw the unicorn and the wraith, and the time he tried to curse me off my broom, but not as bad, then. I never figured out _why_ it hurt the other two times, but I guessed it was more unicorns. And last night it was just _burning_ and wouldn’t stop. So I figured he was after the stone, and I couldn’t think of any reason Maia and Lils would have left the hospital wing so quickly so then I thought they might be involved somehow. I went to the Great Hall and they weren’t there. I was searching the Library when the Weasley twins found me.

“They asked me what was wrong and if they could help, and I said no, not unless they could help me find Maia and Lils asap, and that’s when they pulled out the map. They found Maia and Lils in the Devil’s Snare room, and you were in the chess room, and Quirrell was in the mirror room already. I realized they must have gone to try and warn you, but you were too far ahead: they were going to run into a duel and probably get taken hostage or something, or just get in the way. So I got up to go after them, and the twins stopped me again. They showed me the secret passage from the Slytherin dorms, and I decided that maybe I could sneak through the mirror room if I silenced the cloak, and then I could warn you and stop them, and we could all go back while you took care of Quirrellmort.”

“Hmmm… while I appreciate your faith in my dueling abilities…”

“Well you _did_ win over Halloween, right? And he’s been getting weaker and dottier since, you can tell in class even. But I didn’t want you getting possessed, so I thought it would be a good idea to warn you too, but it turned out I was too slow and you were already fighting when I got there, and then he somehow knew I was there, the Dark Lord, I mean, and the pain in my scar was about enough to knock me out and I fell over and you blasted that damn turban, and the wraith came after me.

“It tried to possess me. I could feel it in my head and it was suffocating me and then it said “what the hell is this” and I heard it _inside my head_ , it was _awful_. And then it _screamed_ , like a snake, and left my head. I don’t know why. I didn’t do anything, I don’t think. But the pain was a little bit less, and I shouted at it to go away, and it asked what I was. I told it to go away again, and then you came over and threatened to banish it. I tried to call it a demon and said you were going to destroy it, but it came out weird. Parsel is like that, sometimes, I guess. And then you exorcised it. So is it gone now? The Headmaster said it couldn’t die, but you didn’t try to cut its throat or something…”

“Unfortunately no, it is _not_ gone. The ‘exorcism’ was actually a devocation – it sends a spirit back to whence it came. If it had been a poltergeist it would have been sent beyond the veil. A demon would have been sent back to its own dimension. But since the Dark Lord was originally human and never truly died, he was only sent somewhere else in this world. If we’re lucky, he’s back in Albania, which is, I believe, the furthest he has ever travelled from England, but he may have been sent to Godric’s Hollow, where your mother blew him up, or wherever he was born.”

Hermione and Lilian were looking back and forth between their professor and their best friend with a look of mutual horror. “How can you talk about it as though this isn’t horrifying?” Hermione asked.

“Because, Miss Granger, horrifying or not, it still has to be dealt with.”

“Merlin’s pants, Hermione, do you not remember last week when I was freaking out about this and all you cared about was exams and I said you were insane and needed to get your priorities straight? We already _knew_ it was him.”

Lilian reached behind Mary’s chair and grabbed Hermione’s hand. “It wasn’t _real_ , then, Elizabeth. Though I agree, Hermione, you’re a bit mad about exams.”

Mary rolled her eyes and shared a moment of perfect understanding with her professor, though she didn’t know it. Of course it had been real then – why _wouldn’t_ it have been? “Maybe it just wasn’t real to you because you’re not the one who’s been getting cursed all term,” she said sharply.

Lilian, who was normally quick with a retort, just shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Anyway, now that it _is_ real and we are talking about it, I have a few other questions. Maia, you have the list?”

“Of course I do.” She pulled a folded piece of parchment from her pocket and handed it over.

“These are all the questions I asked Dumbledore and he wouldn’t answer.”

Professor Snape smirked. “Ask away.”

Mary grinned, relieved that _someone_ was willing to answer her questions. “Alright: First question was if the Dark Lord was really dead, but you already said _no_ , so now I have new follow up questions. First, why not?”

“Unfortunately I do not know. If I did, he would be dead by now. There are several possible options, but all of them are Black Arts. Given his current state, I would say it is one of the rituals that creates a tether between the _animus_ and this plain of existence, rather than a trade with Death, but…” the man shrugged, “when I figure it out, I will tell you.”

Mary wasn’t happy, but at least he hadn’t just fobbed her off. “Okay. Why doesn’t anyone say his name? Do you even know what it is?”

Professor Snape grinned. “Well, Malfoy once told me that the Dark Lord came up with the name Voldemort when he was in school, and subsequently decided that he didn’t like it. Death Eaters were forbidden to use it by Bellatrix as a mark of respect. He put a taboo on it, a spell which let him track down and kill anyone who used it anywhere in the country as well, and so people began to fear the name as much as the man himself. But his real name? The Headmaster believes he was Tom Riddle, a halfblood boy who attended Hogwarts in the early 1940s. Bellatrix has confirmed that his given name was Tom, and I have no reason to doubt that, though he was well distanced from it by the time I was recruited.”

“HA! I knew it. I told Dumbledore it was probably something obnoxious and lame like Quincey.” The other girls laughed, and even Professor Snape smiled at this. “But why wouldn’t he tell me?”

“The old goat does not fully understand the balance between secrecy and effectiveness,” the Head of Slytherin said sourly, and the girls laughed again.

“Alright, second question: Why did the Dark Lord want to kill me in the first place? Dumbledore said that my mother died to save me, so he must have been after me and not her, even though she was fighting him and was way more dangerous, you know? And it’s obvious he knows, but he wouldn’t say.”

Severus Snape’s face went dark. “No, we, they, did not want to kill your mother. Bellatrix wanted to recruit her, actually, and the Dark Lord was wary of attacking her. She was a very dangerous fighter, and your father was not, though it pains me to say so, entirely incompetent. I begged the Dark Lord to spare her life…”

“I don’t understand. If the Death Eaters wanted her and he didn’t want to fight her, why did he attack us?”

The professor appeared to snap out of his reverie. “There was a prophecy made concerning the Dark Lord in early July, 1980. One of his Death Eaters brought him the first few lines only: _The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies._ ”

“And he thought that meant Lizzie? Why? I mean… that’s just stupid!” exclaimed Hermione, as though no one so stupid should be allowed to hold any power whatsoever.

“Well, we have already established that he was losing his mind, but aside from that, he knew that he only had part of the prophecy. I believe he thought that Dumbledore and the Order knew more. There were several women on Dumbledore’s side pregnant at the time, most of whom had fought in at least three skirmishes against the Dark Lord. Two were due at the end of July or beginning of August. Dumbledore urged both of them to go into hiding for their own protection and the sake of their children, but only one did. I believe that it was that decision which ultimately led the Dark Lord to believe that Lily Potter’s child was the child of the prophecy, though Dumbledore does not believe it.”

Mary looked positively irate. “Why not? I mean, he killed my parents and made me have to go live with the Dursleys. Why shouldn’t I try to kill him?”

The professor raised an eyebrow at her. “The same could be said for the Headmaster, you know. He was the chief warlock who sent you to live with those hideous creatures.”

“Hey! Muggles are people too!” Hermione objected.

“Petunia Evans specifically was a waste of oxygen. I cannot imagine that marriage has improved her attitude toward magic one jot,” was the calm response.

“Yeah, no. The Dursleys were horrible, Maia. Why doesn’t Dumbledore think I’m the child of the prophecy?”

“Simply because the rest of it specifies that the prophesied savior is _male._ ”

“What?” Lilian’s mouth practically fell open in disbelief.

“Indeed. _The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies, and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not, and either must die at the hands of the other, for neither can live while the other survives. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies._ ”

“ _SERIOUSLY?”_ Lilian nearly shouted. “How is he not _vanquished_ already?”

Hermione looked like she had just bitten into a lemon. Mary was just angry.

“Who _is_ the child of the prophecy, then, if it’s not me?”

“The headmaster believes it’s Neville Longbottom.”

“ _Neville_? But he’s almost as bad a wizard as Quirrellmort. It _can’t_ be Neville!”

“Do shut up, Lili. ‘The headmaster believes’ is not the same as ‘It is,’” Hermione said primly. “I can’t say I like this whole prophecy business, but if that’s what we’re dealing with, we’d best have it recorded. Say it again,” she ordered, summoning pen and parchment from her bag.

Professor Snape raised an eyebrow, apparently impressed by the fact that Hermione had seen through his verbal dodge more quickly than his Slytherins. He began to recite the prophecy again, slowly, so that the girl could copy it down, but she interrupted him almost at once.

“Born like a baby or with an ‘e’, like carried or brought?” the Ravenclaw asked with a frown.

“That is an excellent question.”

“You mean you don’t _know_? What about the seventh month? Are they sure it’s July?”

“What other month would it be?” Mary asked.

“September, maybe? There are lunar calendars, and the old Gregorian calendar and that’s only in the Western world,” said Hermione dismissively. “What if the savior is Muslim, or Chinese? This is so _stupid_.”

“You know,” said the professor, “I think I underestimated you, Miss Granger. You are much more entertaining than I gave you credit for. Do you want the rest of the prophecy or not?”

Hermione looked somewhat taken aback by this, and both Lilian and Mary sniggered. “Yes, sir,” she said, and continued copying.

“When you finish parsing out all the potential meanings, do send a copy to our esteemed Headmaster,” the professor added (possibly sarcastically) as Hermione finished writing out the last line.

Mary looked at her list of questions again. “So if the Dark Lord was so determined to kill me, and he killed both my parents, why am I still alive? Why couldn’t he kill me? What happened that night?”

“That is the question, isn’t it? What did Dumbledore tell you?”

“That Lily died to save me. But I don’t understand! Plenty of other parents must have died trying to save their children!”

“Ah, but those parents were not ritual prodigies, and they did not get killed on Death’s night, and they did not have access to the semi-legendary Potter-Peverell library for a year and a half before their deaths.” The girls exchanged a confused look while their professor continued. “I believe, though of course I cannot prove it, that Lily enacted a ritual wherein she sacrificed herself, and thereby offered her _anima_ in place of your own when death came for you… exactly how, I do not know, but I _do_ know that Lily was not the sort of woman to balk at using Dark or even Black Arts in the service of the light. To protect you… she would have done _anything_. After that, well… I’ve been to the house, you know. Half the second story was blown up. They recovered the Dark Lord’s remains, and your parents’. There was no sign of damage around the crib, which is presumably where you were placed. If I had to guess, I would say that Lily had placed wards around your crib, and filled the walls with muggle explosives. She was rather fond of the element of surprise, your mother.”

Mary nodded quietly, holding her friends’ hands tightly. “And is that… is that why he couldn’t possess me? Because of her sacrifice?”

“That I do not know. I will have to do some research. It has been some time since I studied soul magics in any depth.”

Lilian made a little _meep_ sound.

“What?” Mary and Hermione asked together.

Lilian gave her head of house a fearful glance before she explained: “Soul magic is the blackest of Black Arts. You shouldn’t… no one should study soul magic.”

“Know thine enemy, Miss Moon,” Professor Snape said evenly.

“Why aren’t you the DADA professor, sir?” Hermione asked suddenly.

The professor turned to her with a glare. “Because,” anger was evident in his tone, “the _Headmaster_ wants to keep me around, and DADA professors have a bad habit of getting themselves killed.”

“Yeah, Maia, I could have told you that,” Lilian said. “The job’s cursed. Has been for _ages_.”

“Indeed. 1957, I believe, was the first death. Since then no one has retained the post for more than one year.”

“It’s been 35 years, and no one has thought to just change the curriculum?!” Hermione looked appalled.

“You are not the first to make such a suggestion. I believe the Americans have summed up the Headmaster’s opinion on the matter: we do not negotiate with terrorists.”

“But… but… you’re fighting a _war_ , and… It’s _defense_! Surely that’s important enough to work around! Are you really telling me that no one under the age of fifty has had a solid DADA education? That’s just _mad._ Abolish the position! Make a new one!”

“I welcome you to bring your case before the headmaster, for all the good it will do. I warn you, arguing with the man is like arguing with a brick wall.”

Hermione made a harrumphing noise. Mary would have bet a lot of money that the Grangers would be starting a petition or something to abolish and replace the DADA class over the summer.

“Do you have any other questions on that list of yours, or have I finally exhausted your curiosity?” Professor Snape asked.

“Did… did you know it was Quirrellmort, and not just Quirrell? I mean, was it worth my coming down, or their following you?” she looked quickly at each of her friends.

“I did not know, until I recognized his voice. As to whether you made a positive difference? Impossible to say. Obviously it was a waste for Miss Granger and Miss Moon to get stuck in the Potion Room again, but it did no harm. Anything else?”

“Erm… just one more.”

“Well, spit it out.”

“It might be… a bit impertinent, sir.”

“And?”

“Well, you see, sir, Mr. Lupin told me over the winter hols that my father would have hated the fact that you’re my Head of House. I asked the Headmaster why, and he said you two never got along, but then he said my father did something you could never forgive: he saved your life. And I just had to ask… why?”

The professor sneered. “One of his friends played a ‘prank’ which, if it had succeeded, would have resulted in my death and both that friend and another friend, an unwitting dupe, gaining life sentences in Azkaban. Never fear, there was something in it for him as well.”

Mary was somewhat relieved by that response. “Oh, good. The headmaster was going on about how it was the right thing to do, and my father was a true Gryffindor, but I’d be really disappointed if he was just running around risking his life for his enemies like that.”

Professor Snape tried to keep a straight face, but couldn’t manage it. After a moment he couldn’t help but laugh at the girl’s earnest expression. “He was a Gryffindor through and through, an arrogant bully, but, as I said, not completely incompetent. You take after your mother more.” The man’s expression sobered quickly, however, as he continued to speak. “I will look into your condition more carefully, Miss Potter, and inform you if and when I discover more information. In the meanwhile, please inform me at once if your scar continues to hurt as it does when the Dark Lord is near, understood?”

Mary nodded quickly.

“Good. Now be gone with you. I’m sure you have packing or some such to finish.”

The girls filed out with a chorus of ‘yes, sir’s and ‘thank you, sir’s. Mary poked her head back into the office right before the door closed completely to wish him a good holiday, and found him already settling in to finish grading the final round of potions exams.

He waved her away with a surprised, “You too.” Honestly, it was as though no one had ever wished him a good summer before…

###  Saturday 27 June 1992

#### End of Year Feast

Saturday was spent in a flurry of packing, lazing about, and visiting one’s favorite places around the Castle. Mary spent part of it hunting down Professor McGonagall and making sure that she would _not_ , in fact, be returned to the Dursleys. All was well – the Professor had already arranged a top-secret safe-house for Mary, and after half an hour of hard negotiating, the Professor, who seemed to be trying to make up for “failing” Mary in the obstacle course, agreed to allow her to visit the Grangers again for the week of her birthday, and to let Lilian come visit for the last week of the summer.

Mary had a long talk with Lilian and Hermione about Professor Snape’s revelations. After several hours of turning each piece of the conversation around every which way, they decided to keep the new knowledge to themselves unless someone asked or they could get it independently verified (Hermione’s idea). After all, they had no guarantees that Professor Snape was telling them the truth, and the Slytherins wholeheartedly agreed that he would lie to them if it suited him. Lilian also pointed out that he seemed to be a little bit in love with Mary’s mum, and that this was hilarious.

That evening, Mary entered the Great Hall alone – Madam Pomfrey had insisted that she stop by for a last check-up, and it had taken much longer than Mary expected. When she arrived, the Great Hall was already full. It was decked out in Slytherin colors for the seventh year in a row. A huge banner with the Slytherin serpent covered the wall behind the High Table.

When Mary walked in, there was a sudden hush, and then everybody started talking loudly at once. She slipped into her usual seat between Lilian and Blaise at the Slytherin table, and tried to ignore the fact that people were standing up to look at her. According to Lilian, most of the school knew that she was somehow involved with Professor Quirrell’s death and Professor Snape’s surprisingly good mood (not that anyone outside of Slytherin had noticed the latter). Mary had therefore expected this response, but that didn’t make it _better_.

Fortunately, Dumbledore arrived moments later and the babble died away. He made a short speech, and Slytherin was awarded the House Cup for the seventh year running. Professor McGonagall looked utterly resigned as she shook hands with Professor Snape. Really, with the Weasley twins in her house, she hadn’t ever stood a chance.

###  Sunday 28 June 1992

#### Hogwarts Express

Grades were returned at breakfast on Sunday, just before the students were returned to the Hogwarts Express. Hermione positively skipped across the Great Hall to compare with Lilian and Mary. She had taken firsts in nearly every subject, and Mary was convinced that she just wanted to tell someone (everyone). Padma Patil was glaring at her from the Ravenclaw table as though she wanted to commit a particularly bloody murder, or perhaps snog Hermione in a broom cupboard. It was hard to say, with Ravenclaws.

Both Mary and Lilian passed with good marks – mostly E’s, with a few O’s. Mary was frankly surprised to see that she had gotten an A* in History of Magic. When Hermione expressed her condolences on the A, Mary showed her the comment:

_*While your understanding of the topic at hand is barely passable, you make some excellent points otherwise. Your essay was clearly and concisely written, and in light of recent events, we see no reason to refuse to advance you to the second-year History of Magic class. You should not, however, presume that such a tactic will work in the future. FF SS_

“Really I’m lucky they passed me at all!” she said with a grin, and turned to salute the High Table. Professor Snape nodded gravely as though he knew exactly what she was on about. Professor McGonagall gave her a rueful smile.

“Mary! Really? But you knew all of the answers! We went over them at least half a dozen times in the library.”

Mary nodded seriously. “I did. And I wrote them. Just… the bare minimum. What I would have known if you hadn’t helped me out with the studying…” She paused for effect, grinning again. She couldn’t help it. “And then I added four feet on why Binns was a terrible professor.” Mary, Lilian, and all the Slytherins in earshot laughed at this.

“You did _what?!”_ Hermione screeched.

“I don’t even think that he can grade exams!” Mary pointed out. “Look, the heads of house initialed it, not Binns.”

“Yeah,” Lilian chimed in. “Maybe now we’ll get a decent History professor!”

* * *

As the students filed out of the Great Hall, Professor McGonagall gave them notes saying that they were not allowed to use magic over the summer. Hagrid met the first-years and they trooped back down the endless stair to the fleet of tiny boats, sailed back across the lake, and boarded the train.

They talked and laughed and wandered up and down the train, first looking for their trunks and then visiting friends and acquaintances and catching up as they sped past Muggle towns. Everyone wanted to know about Mary’s adventures, and after the first twenty minutes or so, the trio began making up stories to feed the rumor mill. It was, in their opinion, great fun, though it seemed Ron Weasley had never actually forgiven Mary for telling him that she wasn’t Mary Potter on their _first_ train ride. He was _not_ amused when they asked how he and Neville escaped the Potions Room.

The countryside became greener and tidier as they flew south, and before they knew it, they were back at Platform Nine and Three Quarters.

The girls waved at the Weasleys and Greengrasses on the platform, and Blaise with a woman who had to be his mother, but they didn’t stop to talk. Padma Patil dragged her parents over to meet Hermione (and Mary, of course), while Lilian disappeared to find her own family. Then the Malfoys cornered Mary and Draco introduced her to his parents (pointedly ignoring Hermione). Mary assumed that the introduction had been made on his father’s orders, since Draco didn’t look pleased about it, and Mrs. Malfoy just looked exceedingly bored. After a few minutes of overly polite, awkward small talk, (suddenly ridiculously grateful for all the hours she spent reading Pureblood etiquette books at the beginning of the school year,) Mary smoothly excused herself to help Hermione find her parents.

The girls knew exactly where the Grangers were, of course: Mary stepped through the barrier to Muggle King’s Cross with Hermione to say hello to them, and promised to tell them all about her year when she came to visit. Lilian dragged her parents and siblings over to meet the Grangers as well, and the two families exchanged pleasantries until Professor McGonagall appeared to apparate Mary away to their safe-house. More pleasantries were exchanged when she appeared (disguised as Mary’s maiden great-aunt Minnie, her mother’s father’s sister, though of course everyone recognized her once she got close enough – they just chuckled and winked along with the charade).

Mary grinned as the overly-tight, crushing sensation of apparition engulfed her. Somehow, she suspected that she was going to have a lot of fun in the summer ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second book should be posted relatively soon. It is completely written, and in the process of review by myself and my Beta reader.
> 
> Professor Snape's Devocation is in Irish Gaelic (more or less). It translates roughly as:  
> "I call on the powers of the day!"  
> "I call on the powers of the night!"  
> "By the Orderly Power I command you!"  
> "I banish you, unclean spirit, dark magic."  
> "Go now to whence you came."  
> "Thrice now I send you out of this place!"  
> "Be gone!"

**Author's Note:**

> As implied by the fact that I am posting this work to a FAN FICTION archive, I do not own most of the characters in this story, or the general plot, or most of the settings. I don’t claim to. Even things that are not taken from canon may bear a striking resemblance to other fan works, due to the fact that I’ve read far too many such things. No plagiarism is intended. If you see something that looks familiar from fan fiction, PM me and I will add a reference. 
> 
> This story is written for fun, not profit, and I have and will receive no money in relation to it. Furthermore, as this is a single-point-of-divergence universe (or it’s supposed to be), there will be extensive scenes where the dialogue is taken verbatim from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling, especially in the first few chapters. In order to preserve the pacing of the story, these passages have not been marked. I do not claim ownership of those lines. If you recognize them, you doubtless know who does.


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